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Jonathan's Coffee-House

17th-century establishments in England17th century in London18th century in LondonCoffeehouses and cafés in the United KingdomFormer buildings and structures in the City of London
London Stock Exchange
ONL (1887) 1.472 Jonathan's
ONL (1887) 1.472 Jonathan's

Jonathan's Coffee House was a significant meeting place in London in the 17th and 18th centuries, famous as the original site of the London Stock Exchange. The coffee house was opened around 1680 by Jonathan Miles in Change (or Exchange) Alley, in the City of London. In 1696, several patrons were implicated in a plot to assassinate William III, and it was thought to be associated with the Popish Plots. In 1698, it was used by John Castaing to post the prices of stocks and commodities, the first evidence of systematic exchange of securities in London. That year, dealers expelled from the Royal Exchange for rowdiness migrated to Jonathan's (as well as to Garraway's Coffee-House). It was the scene of a number of critical events in the history of share trading, including the South Sea Bubble and the panic of 1745. It was destroyed by fire in 1748, and rebuilt. In 1761 a club of 150 brokers and jobbers was formed to trade stocks. The club built its own building in 1773 in Sweeting's Alley, which was dubbed the New Jonathan's, but was renamed the Stock Exchange (now officially called the London Stock Exchange). The original Jonathan's served as the home of a lottery office until it was destroyed by fire in 1748.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Jonathan's Coffee-House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Jonathan's Coffee-House
Change Alley, City of London

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N 51.5129 ° E -0.087 °
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Change Alley

Change Alley
EC3V 9AH City of London
England, United Kingdom
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ONL (1887) 1.472 Jonathan's
ONL (1887) 1.472 Jonathan's
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Lloyd's Coffee House
Lloyd's Coffee House

Lloyd's Coffee House was a significant meeting place in London in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was opened by Edward Lloyd (c. 1648 – 15 February 1713) on Tower Street in 1686. The establishment was a popular place for sailors, merchants and shipowners, and Lloyd catered to them by providing reliable shipping news. The shipping industry community frequented the place to discuss maritime insurance, shipbroking and foreign trade. The dealings that took place led to the establishment of the insurance market Lloyd's of London, Lloyd's Register and several related shipping and insurance businesses.The coffee shop relocated to Lombard Street in December 1691. Lloyd had a pulpit installed in the new premises, from which maritime auction prices and shipping news were announced. Candle auctions were held in the establishment, with lots frequently involving ships and shipping. From 1696–1697 Lloyd also experimented with publishing a newspaper, Lloyd's News, reporting on shipping schedules and insurance agreements reached in the coffee house. In 1713, the year of Edward Lloyd's death, he modified his will to assign the lease of the coffee house to his head waiter, William Newton, who then married one of Lloyd's daughters, Handy. Newton died the following year and Handy subsequently married Samuel Sheppard. She died in 1720 and Sheppard died in 1727, leaving the coffee house to his sister Elizabeth and her husband, Thomas Jemson. Jemson founded the Lloyd's List newspaper in 1734, similar to the previous Lloyd's News. Merchants continued to discuss insurance matters there until 1774, when the participating members of the insurance arrangement formed a committee and moved to the Royal Exchange on Cornhill as the Society of Lloyd's.

City bonds robbery

The City bonds robbery of 1990 was a heist in which £291.9 million (equivalent to £840 million in 2023) was stolen in London, England. The carefully planned operation made it seem at first as if a courier had been mugged on 2 May, yet the City of London Police soon realised that it was a sophisticated global venture which ended up involving participants such as the New York mafia, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Colombian drug barons. The robbery was one of the largest in world history. The robbery took advantage of the existence of couriers who moved vast sums of money around the City of London in order to ensure liquidity in the UK financial system. The money was in the form of certificates of deposit and HM Treasury bills. These bearer bonds were recovered in different places including Glasgow, New York, Miami (on their way to Peru), and Zürich. In a wide-ranging investigation, the police eventually recovered all but two of the 301 certificates, with some of those arrested allegedly turning informant, such as Mark Osborne, who was later found murdered. Patrick Thomas, who allegedly carried out the original theft, was shot dead. Keith Cheeseman, an extravagant fraudster, was arrested in the UK but skipped bail to Tenerife, claiming his life was in danger. He was briefly thought to have been the Bolney Torso and then was located and arrested in Spain. Cheeseman was extradited to the US to stand charges of money laundering and received a six and a half year sentence. John Traynor was arrested for a mortgage fraud using the stolen bonds as collateral; he was sentenced to seven years for handling stolen goods. A year and a half later he absconded from prison; he was arrested in the Netherlands in 2010 and extradited back to the UK to serve the rest of his sentence.