A BRIEF GUIDE TO LLOYD'S REGISTER OF OF SHIPPING

Reproduced with the approval of the author Michael Palmer

Lloyd's Register of [British and Foreign] Shipping is a British

publication that describes, classifies and registers vessels according

to certain criteria of physical structure and equipment, to enable

underwriters, shipbrokers, and shipowners more easily to assess

commercial risk and to negotiate marine insurance rates.

The name "Lloyd" derives from Edward Lloyd, the "coffee man", as he

called himself, who operated a coffee house in London, originally in

Tower Street, then, from just after Christmas 1691, in Lombard Street,

near the General Post Office. Lloyd's coffee house served as a meeting

place for merchants wishing to exchange news, as well as for merchants

and underwriters wishing to negotiate insurance on vessels and cargo.

The earliest surviving volume of Lloyd's Register dates from 1764,

updated in manuscript to 1766; other surviving volumes date from 1768

(letters M-Z only, updated in manuscript to 1771), 1775-1784, 1786-87,

1789 1802, 1803, 1804-1806, 1807, 1808-1816, and 1818 to date. Between

1800 and 1833, a dispute between underwriters and shipowners resulted in

the publication of two separate registers, the "Green Book" by a society

of the former, the "Red Book" by a society of the latter; for 1803 and

1806, only the Green Book survives. The coverage of these registers is

similar but not identical, some vessels being included in one but not

the other. In 1834, a new society independent of both underwriters and

shipowners, Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping, was

formed, to supervise surveys of vessels [1] and to publish Lloyd's

is, and always has been, completely separate from, and independent of,

the underwriters of Lloyd's (the Corporation of Lloyd's, familiarly

known as "Lloyd's of London"), which was first incorporated in 1871.

Lloyd's Register has been published annually since at least 1775;

since 1834, it has been published in the middle of the year, covering

the following period 1 July through 30 June. D. T. Barriskill's

indispensable "A Guide to the Lloyd's Marine Collection and Related

Marine Sources at Guildhall Library", "Guildhall Library Research Guide 7

(2nd ed.; London: Guildhall Library, 1994)", pp. 4-7, gives a detailed

description of the Register, including (p. 5), the following table of

main categories of information published, together with the dates

between which each appeared:

Name of vessel ............................ 1764-date

Previous names (if any) ................... 1764-date

[between 1786 and 1871, as part of the Government's provisions to combat

smuggling, British vessels were forbidden by statute from changing

names; however, this provision did not prevent the owner of a vessel

from making a "colourable" sale to foreigners "off the register", in

order to return the vessel to the statutory register under a different

name]

Official number ........................... 1872/73-date

Signal code ............................... 1874/75-date

Rig/description ........................... 1768-date

Tonnage ................................... 1764-date

gross/net/under-deck ................. 1874/75-date

Dimensions

load-draught ......................... 1775-1833

length/breadth/depth ................. 1863-date

Description of engines .................... 1874/75-date

Date of building .......................... 1764-date

[Green Book, 1800-1833, gives age]

Place of building ......................... 1764-date

Name of builder ........................... 1860-date

Name of owner ............................. 1764-date

Name of master ............................ 1764-1920/21

(to 1947 in Register of Sailing Vessels)

dates of service with owner/on vessel. 1887-1920/21

Number of crew ............................ 1764-1771

Port of registry .......................... 1834-date

Port of survey ............................ 1764-date

Class ..................................... 1764-date

"Postings" of casualties, etc ............. 1775-1966/67

Destined voyage ........................... 1764-1873/74

Researchers consulting Lloyd's Register should bear in mind that

although the information in Lloyd's Register was considered current at

the time of publication, before the introduction of telegraphic

communication, this information, in particular with regard to the

identities of the master (whose name was not infrequently garbled) and

owner, was often out of date, occasionally by several years. In

addition, vessels lost or "sold foreign" might continue to appear in the

their fate or disposition.

More importantly, Lloyd's Register of Shipping is a voluntary

classification society [2], and until 1875 its published volumes list

only those vessels it had surveyed and classed [3]. As a result, many

smaller vessels, and many early steamships, do not appear in the

published volumes of Lloyd's Register [4]. Since 1875, Lloyd's

or not surveyed and classed by Lloyd's. Until 1890, Lloyd's

Registerwas almost exclusively confined to British registered vessels,

although it included some foreign vessels that traded regularly with

Great Britain [5]; since 1890, it has listed all British and foreign

sea-going merchant vessels of 100 tons and over.

Copies of Lloyd's Register are held by a number of institutions,

including both Lloyd's Register of Shipping and the Corporation of

Lloyd's. In 1969, Gregg International Publishers Ltd, of Farnborough,

England, reprinted the surviving volumes of Lloyd's Register for

1764-1881 (for 1800-1833, only the Green Book), and microfilm copies of

the registers for 1776-1880 are also currently available. Copies of

these reprint volumes and microfilms are held by most major university

and maritime research libraries throughout the world, many of which,

however, consider them of such importance that they do not permit

Interlibrary Loan. Lloyd's Register of Shipping itself maintains a

(woefully incomplete) list of major libraries with holdings of Lloyd's

For researchers unable to access copies of Lloyd's Register in person,

Lloyds Register of Shipping (http://www.lr.org) does provide a research

service, although at rates geared to the business community. The

Maritime History Archive at the Memorial University of Newfoundland

offers a similar research service at considerably lower rates

(http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~mha/fees.html).

Notes:

1. Lloyd's Register of Shipping vessel survey reports for c. 1833-c.

1964 are now held by the National Maritime Museum, Romney Road,

Greenwich, London, SE10 9NF, http://www.nmm.ac.uk.

2. Similar voluntary classification societies include the Bureau

Veritas, now in Paris (http://www.bureauveritas.com), which has

published a Registre Maritime since 1829; the American Shipmasters'

Association (since 1898: American Bureau of Shipping), originally in New

York but now based in Houston (http://www.eagle.org), founded in 1862,

which has published an annual register since 1867; the New York Marine

merged with the American Shipmasters' Association in 1884; Det Norske

Veritas (http://www.dnv.com), founded in 1864; and Germanischer Lloyd

(http://www.germanlloyd.de), founded in 1867.

3. The statutory list of British-registered merchant vessels was the

Mercantile Navy List, first published in 1850 (corrected to December

1849) and superseded in 1978 by the Department of Trade's Official List

of Registered Ships.

4. Returns of all registered steam vessels in the United Kingdom between

January 1851 and January 1870 have been published in Parliamentary

Papers, House of Commons, 1851-1870.

5. These vessels include virtually the entire fleet of Norddeutscher

Lloyd, which upon its foundation in 1858 had taken "Lloyd" as part of

its title to indicate that all its vessels were built to the standards of Lloyd's Register of Shipping.

Michael Palmer

Claremont, California

mpalmer@netcom.com

1999 06 09