Lloyd’s Coffee House
A London coffee house grows into a global insurance market
Around 1686 Edward Lloyd opened a coffee house frequented by sailors, merchants and shipowners. He published shipping news, cargoes were insured at its tables, and so began Lloyd’s, the world’s great insurance market.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 17th century
Did you know
The world’s largest insurance market began in a coffee house. In 1680s London, sailors and merchants drank coffee at Edward Lloyd’s, heard the shipping news and insured cargoes on the spot: that was Lloyd’s. Share →
London’s 17th-century coffee houses were called “penny universities”: for a penny, the price of entry and a cup, you could listen to scholars and merchants for hours. They gave birth to both Lloyd’s and the Stock Exchange. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1682 Accession of Peter the Great — 4 years earlier
- 1703 Founding of Saint Petersburg — 17 years later
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Africa
- 1662 Last sighting of the dodo — 24 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Louis XIV (aged 48)
- Isaac Newton (aged 43)
- Kangxi Emperor (aged 32)
- Peter the Great (aged 14)
- Johann Sebastian Bach (aged 1)
- Aurangzeb (aged 68)
- Leopold I (aged 46)
- Matsuo Bashō (aged 42)
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