Lloyd's registry, before becoming a classification society was nothing but a discussion group where people from different parts of the globe used to gather to discuss shipping business. It had its germinal seeds in a coffee house of London. This was way back in the 17th Century, when people connected to the shipping industry used to gather in a particular coffee house in London. People such as merchants, goods traders, ship brokers, sailors etc. Looking at the specific type of crowd and information shared at his coffee house, Edward Lloyd, the owner of the coffee house started keeping a printed note of all the information that were shared by his customers and used to later distribute them to every one coming to his coffee shop. Due to this, the coffee house become an information sharing hub where people used to come from different sides of the globe to avail new opportunities.
The demand of the coffee house started increasing and keeping this in mind its customer's decided to give it a name. In 1760 the Lloyd's registry was formed by the customers of the coffee house.The first classification regulation was introduced in 1764 which enumerated the condition standards of the sea going vessel that the Registry would insure. A yardstick was created which rated ships according to their quality and condition. For e.g- A ship's hull was rated using letters such as A, B ,C etc. A would mean of the highest quality. Similarly, other parts of the ship such as mast, hatches etc were rated in numbers wherein "1" would state of the highest quality.
