Lloyd’s Coffee House: maritime insurance and the slave trade

Diocese of London United Kingdom As the fountainhead of maritime insurance Lloyd's is the most famous coffeehouse. Its story is emblematic of the rise and fall of London’s coffeehouses: part of their meteoric rise was the appeal of auctions; their fall came when these public spaces turned private. Exploring Lloyd’s also reveals the coffeehouse's deep links to the slave trade, from auctions and escaped enslaved Africans to the insuring of slave ships and their human cargo.