Description
Freeboard regulations are an uncontested standard of maritime transport, establishing benchmarks for the loading of ships to ensure their safety. These rules first originated in Lloyd’s Register (LR), the classification society, in the 1830s, before being translated in national legislation in the UK in the 1870s, and finally into international legislation in the 1930s. This paper examines the process by which load lines came to be governed, and specifically the role of Lloyd’s Register, in the imagination and implementation of the load line regime. Through its global network of offices and surveyors, LR was able not only to shape shipping industrial practice on the ground but also to leverage public forums of regulation internationally; in exploring these dynamics, this paper seeks to shed new light on scholarship on geographies and relations of expertise and rule-making in pre-WWII global governance.
