30 NOVEMBER 1985, Page 22

Catharsis

OH FOR a Lytton Strachey to chronicle Lloyd's of London! After Eminent Victo- rians, Noteworthy Citizens? He found a phrase to describe Oxford's parting with John Henry Newman which perfectly evokes Lloyd's' parting with Ian Hay Davi- son, its chief executive, and another figure of inconvenient independence: 'The Uni- versity breathed such a sigh of relief as usually follows the explosion of a hard piece of matter from a living organism. Lloyd's could give us more encouraging, but scarcely more characteristic, signs of life.