Lloyd's List is one of the world's oldest continuously running journals, having provided weekly shipping news in London as early as 1734.[1] It was published daily until 2013 (when the final print issue, number 60,850, was published), and is now published digitally.
Founded | 1734 |
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Website | lloydslist |
Also known simply as The List, it was begun by Edward Lloyd, the proprietor of Lloyd's Coffee House, as a source of information for merchants' agents and insurance underwriters who met regularly in his establishment on Lombard Street to negotiate insurance coverage for trading vessels.[2] It continues to provide this information in addition to marine insurance, offshore energy, logistics, market data, research, global trade and law information, and shipping news.[3]
The earliest form of Lloyd's List was estimated by some to have begun by 1692. One historian, Michael Palmer, wrote that: "No later than January 1692, Lloyd began publishing a weekly newsletter, ‘Ships Arrived at and Departed from several Ports of England, as I have Account of them in London... [and] An Account of what English Shipping and Foreign Ships for England, I hear of in Foreign Ports’".[4] Around that time, Lloyd’s News was published three times a week with no particular emphasis on shipping from 1696 to 1697.[citation needed] However, claims that Lloyd's List is the oldest continuously published newspaper in the world are disputed. The World Association of Newspapers lists several earlier, extant titles.[5]
Thomas Jemson inherited Lloyd's Coffee House in 1727 and founded the Lloyd's List that is known today when he launched a weekly shipping intelligence publication. Publication was weekly until March 1735, then twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Fridays, according to Palmer.[citation needed]
In 1769, the coffee house moved to Pope's Head Alley and from there, the New Lloyd’s List began, according to Lloyd's Register.[citation needed] The paper was published every day except Sundays from 1 July 1837. In July 1884, Lloyd's List merged with the Shipping and Mercantile Gazette.
Lloyd's List has spawned several spin-off titles, including sister title Insurance Day.
In 2009, Lloyd's List went through a major re-design that encompassed both the masthead and the newspaper itself. Between 2011 and 2017, a Lloyd’s List operated a mobile app.[6] Beginning in 2013, Lloyd's List was published in digital format only, as it was found that fewer than 2% of customers used the print version.[7]
In 2022, Informa sold Lloyd's List to Montagu Private Equity.[8] The business was then reorganised as Maritime Insights & Intelligence Limited.