ABSTRACT
The theme of this book is the history of the Lloyds in the eighteenth century, of the trade on which their fortunes were built and of its superstructure, a private banking partnership. The event of the century that followed was the conversion of this partnership, in 1865, into a public joint-stock company. And since the whole story is in some sense the pre-history of a later and greater bank, so the 186os are the time to which this final chapter must extend, to give perspective to the earlier century and bridge it to more modern days.
