A1 AT LLOYD’S.
A1 at Lloyd’s is a sufficiently familiar expression; it meets our eye in the newspaper paragraph; it stares at us from the wall-placard; and it haunts us in Fenchurch Street, E.C., Water Street, Liverpool, and other chosen homes of shipowners. Every one recognises in it a nautical equivalent for ‘first quality;’ but here information on the subject usually ends. As Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping, the institution granting the title in question, has not long since celebrated its jubilee, we believe a short account of the origin of that undertaking and of the work in which it is engaged may prove of interest.
The business of underwriting or insuring against marine risks is of very ancient date; to say that it existed among the Phœnicians takes us back a long way in the world’s history; and as a necessary preliminary to legitimate underwriting, as distinguished from mere chance-work, lies, and must ever have lain, in knowing that the vessel proposed to be insured is seaworthy, we may also claim for the business of the ship-surveyor a respectable antiquity.
The primitive underwriter was probably a man with a practical knowledge of ships, and who, when asked to insure a certain vessel, surveyed it himself. As business increased, however the inconvenience attending this system would soon make itself felt, and the obvious expedient of the underwriter employing a skilled man to make the survey for him and send in a report, would be adopted. From an underwriter receiving reports of the condition of individual ships, to his arranging these in tabular form, is but a step; and from individual underwriters drawing up such lists for their own guidance, to their agreeing generally to place them at the service of their brothers in the business, is but another, although the length of time that elapsed ere this latter result was reached was doubtless considerable. The oldest classified list of shipping extant dates only from the beginning of the reign of George III.; but this document—of which more anon—bears unmistakable internal evidence of being at the time no novelty.
Our story opens during the early years of the reign of Charles II.; English colonies across the sea were beginning to prosper; English commerce, notwithstanding oppressive fiscal laws, was on the increase, and the business of the underwriter naturally followed. London was then, as now, the headquarters of the marine insurance business of the country; and the city coffee-houses, then but of recent origin, were the common meeting-places of all connected with the shipping interest: it is the name of the proprietor of one of these establishments that now lives in that of the great corporation of Lloyd’s.
Edward Lloyd is one of those men of whom we would gladly know more than history has brought down to us, but of whose personality apart from his work we know practically nothing, even his proper name having been lost, until recovered by the researches of a recent writer. Finding his house in Tower Street regularly frequented by underwriters, Lloyd—who must have been a man of great ability and foresight—appears to have formed the resolution of making it the headquarters of the business; and to this end, gave facilities for meetings, arranged for sales of vessels and cargoes, started a newspaper, and practically identified his interests with those of his patrons. The newspaper was short-lived, being suppressed by government; but his labours were rewarded by his seeing his establishment—latterly removed to Lombard Street—the centre of marine insurance business not only for London but for the kingdom. Three generations of underwriters met at the Lombard Street coffee-house, and when, in 1770, having formed an association, they removed to premises of their own, and shortly after to the Royal Exchange, they took the name of their old headquarters with them; and thus it has come about that the greatest marine insurance corporation the world has seen owes its name, and to a certain extent its origin, to a London coffee-house keeper at the time of the Restoration, to whose memory the foreign shipowning Companies’ titles of ‘Austrian Lloyd’s,’ ‘North German Lloyd’s,’ ‘Argentine Lloyd’s,’ &c. are additional tributes. The classified list of shipping already referred to as the oldest extant is dated 1764, but is, unfortunately, somewhat mutilated. The work is arranged in a form very similar to that of the register books of to-day, giving in parallel columns the name of the vessel, tonnage, date of building, owner, &c.; and also what is evidently intended for a character or class, one or other of the vowels A, E, &c., in conjunction with the letters G, M, or B. The key to this system of classification is missing; but Mr Martin, the historian of Lloyd’s, has surmised, with every appearance of justice, that the vowels refer to the character of the hull of the vessel; and the accompanying letters, being the initials of the words good, middling, and bad, to the character of the equipment; AG being thus a good, well-equipped ship, and UB the reverse.
How to express satisfactorily the condition of a ship by means of symbols was evidently about this time a disputed point, as in a register dated four years later an entirely new system appears, the letters a, b, c being used in conjunction with the Roman numerals 1, 2, 3, 4. Under this system, a1, an approximation to the now familiar character, represented a good vessel; and c4 its antithesis. Seven years later still, in 1775, the vowels again make their appearance for expressing the character of the hull, the Roman numerals being retained, and A1, as the symbol for a first-class ship, comes on the scene. To decide what shall be the classification letters or numerals used in describing ships of varying character is one thing; to give to each ship the class to which it is justly entitled is another and decidedly more difficult matter. So the London underwriters found; but instead of treating the question as one in which many interests were involved, they treated it as concerning themselves alone, and, during the closing years of last century, came to a decision the sole merit of which was its simplicity. The London shipbuilders of the day got a better price for their work than the builders at other ports, and consequently were able to, and admittedly did, turn out a better ship. Further, it might be primâ facie supposed that a ship, built even on the Thames, was not so good after being afloat ten years as on the day of its launch. Putting these two things together, the compilers of the Register decided to class ships simply according to their age and where they were built; such events as a ship newly built on the Tees being occasionally better than a Thames-built craft of the same size that had been knocking about the seas for five years; or a thirteen-year-old ship under good management being actually in better repair and more seaworthy than an eight-year-old one in careless hands, being held to be contingencies needless to provide against. It was hardly to be supposed that the shipowners would agree to a system of classification which practically placed a monopoly in the hands of certain builders, and which decreed that existing ships after a certain period would lose their class, no matter how perfect their state of repair; and the result of indignation meetings on the subject was the starting of a new Register of shipping; thereafter known as the ‘Red Book;’ the former, or underwriters’ register, being known as the ‘Green Book.’ From the date of founding of the Red Book, the history of ship-classification, from being fragmentary, becomes continuous; and, had the popular saying, that competition is the life of trade, been of universal application, great advance might have been looked for; the law of supply and demand, however, stopped the way. There was not sufficient work for the two Registers; each found it difficult to meet its expenses without taxing its supporters; and although, during the thirty odd years the rivalry lasted, some advance was made, still, during the whole of that period the relationships of shipbuilders, shipowners, shippers, and underwriters one to the other were on an unsatisfactory footing. Nowadays, it is recognised—and no one thinks of disputing the justice of the arrangement—that the shipowner, being clearly the person most interested in his ship bearing a high class, should pay the expense of all surveys. This apparently elementary truth was, however, far from being recognised sixty years ago, the opinion then being that the interested parties were the shippers and underwriters.
After the close of the war with Bonaparte, when privateering was a thing of the past, and convoys of frigates were no longer required, the shipping trade of England rapidly increased; each Register was impelled to keep pace with its rival in adding to its number of ships registered, and the expense of surveys increased in proportion, the number of subscribers remaining but little altered. This was the beginning of the end. By the time that a fourth of the present century had elapsed, the rival Registers were in a hopeless condition; but ten years more of trouble and dispute had to pass ere differences were adjusted, jealousies set at rest; and the ‘Red’ and the ‘Green’ now united, commenced a fresh career of usefulness under the title of ‘Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping,’ the new departure dating from January 1835. The Committee of management of the new Register was supposed to represent in equal proportions the interests of the shipowners, shippers, and underwriters, and, so far as London was concerned, it doubtless did so. With, however, that preference for men and things metropolitan, not unknown yet on the banks of the Thames, the interests of the other shipping ports of the United Kingdom received scant recognition, and the result was the perpetuation of grievances, the effects of which have lasted to our own day. Of much greater importance than the mere union of the rival Registers was the adoption of the system of surveying and classification, which, although improved in detail to an extent then undreamt of, is in operation still. It was settled that henceforth vessels were to be classed on their own merits as at date of survey; that the class should be fixed by the committee on the report of the surveyor; that vessels built with a view to class should be under survey during the course of construction; and that the shipowner should pay the survey fees.
At the date of the founding of Lloyd’s Register, and for untold generations before, the one material used for building ships was wood. Long experience had made its properties common knowledge, and it might reasonably be supposed that shipbuilders would long since have come to an agreement as to the dimensions, say, of the ribs, keel, or planking of a ship of given size; such, however, was far from being the case. Owing, possibly, in part to the fact of ships built at one port being assumed inferior to those built at another, and the builders accepting the situation, and certainly in part to the fact that the rule of thumb was then the leading rule in British naval architecture, the practice in one part of the country differed widely from that in another. To induce the adoption of a uniform scale of ship scantlings founded on the best practice was one of the first tasks attempted by the Committee; but while its members were yet considering the proportions of wooden ships, an influence was at work in the world that was shortly to render their labours of small account. Along with the old familiar click of the calker’s mallet, the dwellers by river-banks began to hear mingle a new sound, the rattle of the riveter’s hammer; and by the time Lloyd’s Register had completed its tenth year of work, the Great Britain had crossed the Atlantic, and the Iron Age had come. The ship-designer found his business brought back at a single step to the experimental stage, and the Committee and surveying staff of Lloyd’s Register found that they had a new business to learn. It is probable that every branch of human industry has been, at one period or another of its history, the subject of trade secrets; iron shipbuilding in its earlier days was no exception, and, as no builder thought it his interest to initiate Lloyd’s Register, that body had no share in the development of the iron ship. This was probably the best arrangement; the days of competitive tenders and ‘poor man’s ships’ were yet in the future; and the men who launched the Great Britain, the Persia, and the Great Eastern, were more in a position to teach than to be taught. In 1844, Lloyd’s Register agreed, for the first time, to give the A1 class to iron ships built under their survey, on the surveyors’ report that they were of good and substantial materials and workmanship; and eleven years later, their first rules for iron ship-construction were issued.
Landsmen who voyaged in the wooden ships of the past were but too familiar with the creaking that went on without intermission whenever weather of a certain degree of roughness was met with. This was due to a slight rubbing of the timbers one on another, and was no sign of weakness, it being impossible with a yielding material like wood to drive bolts absolutely tight. The amount of straining and actual distortion that a wooden ship might undergo and yet remain fairly seaworthy, was astonishing; and a go-ahead skipper preferred a springy ship to a stiff one. With iron, the conditions were entirely changed; rigidity proved essential to safety, and loose fastenings were fatal. It was this necessity for rigidity that made it possible to frame constructive rules from the observation of the behaviour of comparatively new ships, old and tried ones not being then in existence. On examining an iron ship after a single voyage, the surveyor, provided always the painter had not been at work before his arrival, could point unchallenged to the weak points of her structure—started joints, cracked plates, and bent bars, telling their tale only too plainly. For reasons which are not far to seek, but which need not be entered upon here, the rules for the construction of iron vessels issued by Lloyd’s Register in 1855 did not meet the success their framers intended. Greatly improved rules were issued in 1863; but it was not until 1870 that the Committee emancipated itself from various obsolete ideas, and, under the guidance of the honoured gentleman who now holds the position of Secretary to the Register, issued rules in the form now existing. Various editions of these rules appeared from time to time, each more comprehensive than its predecessor; for some years past they have been issued annually; and those now current leave little to be desired so far as completeness is concerned. Lloyd’s Register grants three leading classes—namely, 100A, 90A, and 80A; the numeral 1, making 100A1, being added to keep up the time-honoured classification mark. The system of classification a century ago provided, as we have seen, for differing qualities of outfit in ships otherwise bearing the same character, and the numerals 1, 2, 3, &c. were used accordingly; but the fact has come to be recognised that a good ship with a bad or insufficient outfit is practically a bad ship, and the 100A class is not granted unless the outfit be up to the requirements of the numeral 1.
In addition to the above-named classes, Lloyd’s Register will survey and grant the class A for a vessel designed for almost any desired service, the plans being submitted for their approval; for instance, the swift steamers that carry the mails in connection with the South-Eastern Railway are classed ‘A. Folkestone and Boulogne Passenger Service.’ These special classes, however, are not taken advantage of to any great extent.—Two classes of surveys are held—the ‘Ordinary’ and the ‘Special.’ The first consists in a given number of visits paid to a ship at certain periods during construction; the second, in a systematic inspection of the vessel at short intervals, from the time of laying the keel to that of certifying to the anchors and cables being the proper weight. The first of these, as might be imagined, is open to various drawbacks; and few shipowners who desire a class at Lloyd’s hesitate to incur the somewhat greater expense of a ‘special survey,’ which, as it includes the machinery also if the vessel be a steamer, practically saves the expense of a private inspector. Lloyd’s survey only extends to the structure of the ship, and takes no account of the fitting-up of the cabins and other work connected with the accommodation or comfort of crew and passengers; the class meaning simply that, in the opinion of the Committee, the ship is strong and seaworthy. The work of surveying is carried on in the United Kingdom by about one hundred surveyors, who give their whole time to it; in addition, about three-fourths of this number scattered throughout the world give their services in part. The Committee of management, whose headquarters is in Cornhill, consists of fifty members, representing the different ports of the country, although by no means in proportion to their relative standing, London securing about half the total representation. The Register Book, which represents the results of the labours of Committee and surveyors, is a ponderous volume, and gives the particulars of all the vessels now afloat that have received Lloyd’s classification, in addition to the particulars of numbers of other vessels not so classed; in fact, the Register Book is a great shipping directory, the ship, not the owner, being the leading feature.
Lloyd’s Register is not alone in the field of surveying and classifying ships. Liverpool up till a year ago had a registry of its own, the ‘Liverpool Underwriters’ Registry.’ This has now united itself with Lloyd’s Register, a fact which, for some reasons, is to be regretted. Paris is the headquarters of the ‘Bureau Veritas,’ an undertaking whose classification is in repute in Scandinavia, North Germany, the Netherlands, and France; and which maintains a staff of surveyors in the United Kingdom. This undertaking is not a representative one, and on this ground has been objected to. It is doing useful work, nevertheless; and its system of classification is superior to Lloyd’s, inasmuch as it takes into account the service for which the vessel is intended. A kindred institution to the ‘Bureau Veritas’ looks after the shipping of Italy, and is known in this country as the ‘Italian Veritas;’ while the ‘American Lloyd’s’ controls to a certain extent the building of ships on the Delaware, but is unknown in this country, on account of the well-known navigation laws by which only native-built craft can sail under the stars and stripes.
Classification Societies are not an unmixed benefit to the community, still less have they an unmixed influence for good on the design of ships. Theoretically perfect rules would proportion the strength of every individual ship to the work it had to do; but, as Lloyd’s Committee, through whose hands the designs for over eight hundred ships probably pass in the course of a year, have no possible time for going into such detail, standard types of vessel have been adopted, the designs submitted being compared with these on the basis of their dimensions alone. The natural result of this is that ships are in many cases built to suit Lloyd’s type; and the art of the ship-designer but too often has degenerated into getting the maximum of advantage out of certain dimensions which are known to bring the vessel just within the limits of one of these types.
In the days gone by, ships were built for a certain trade, and kept at it, the East Indiaman, the West Indiaman, and the Atlantic packet seldom interfering with each other. The leading steamship Companies naturally adhere to this system still; but, during recent years, hundreds of individually owned ships have been set afloat, designed for no special trade, but simply to carry the maximum cargo on the minimum cost wherever a freight offers itself. It is largely from the necessity of making its rules applicable to these privateers of trade that the frequently grumbled-at oppressiveness of Lloyd’s Register arises. This brings us to notice that some first-class steamship Companies do not class their vessels at all; and it may cause surprise to many to know that of those steamers whose rapid passages across the Atlantic have made their names familiar, the majority are not A1 at Lloyd’s. The reason for this is simply, that a skilful designer who knows thoroughly the requirements of the service for which a ship is intended can always turn out a better and more economical vessel than one built to class, a fact which more of the leading steamship Companies will doubtless come to recognise before long. The rules of Lloyd’s Register for the construction of iron vessels are growing in stringency from year to year; a vessel built to class ten years ago, and which has proved her efficiency by doing the work for which she was designed during all that period without a complaint, would, if built to-day, require a large percentage of additional weight put into her structure to bring her strength up to the demands of the current rules. That this is so is due to the fact that, up till quite recently, Lloyd’s Register has taken account of one element only out of the several that the question of the safety of a ship on the ocean involves. For years past, the aim of the Committee has been to take from the shipbuilder more and more of the responsibility which he at one time bore for the strength of the vessels he builds, until now his share is practically nil; while it has been but too evident for years past, from the disclosures that now and again have been elicited before the Commissioner of Wrecks, that a good ship may be badly stowed, overloaded, or undermanned, and, under such circumstances, be in much greater danger from sea-risks than a far inferior ship in good hands.
The aim of Lloyd’s Register is the protection of the shippers and underwriters against undue risks, and the present high rates of marine insurance show that this protection is not what it might be. If the trouble and expense now devoted to securing strong vessels are not to continue to be thrown away, as they certainly are at present in a fair percentage of cases, the Committee will require to take steps to insure that a ship bearing their highest class shall not take the sea with a cargo badly stowed, an insufficient crew, or too little freeboard. The question of freeboard is already engaging attention; the other points cannot long be left in their present state; and the day will then come when shippers will think with wonder on the times when premiums at the rate of ten per cent. were paid for insuring cargoes in ships that were 100A1 at Lloyd’s.