Many of the nation’s largest trading companies were headquartered in the coffee houses, and London’s stockbrokers operated within them for over a hundred years. Only when those establishments fell into decline did the brokers finally acquire their own quarters and establish an Exchange. For many years, the insurance institution Lloyd’s of London operated out of a coffee house, which provided a place where the city’s unorganized marine underwriters could mingle with knowledgeable men of the sea and benefit from their gossip. The coffee house was fundamentally a forum for human association and community, both practical and deeply satisfying.