City Messengers

"Let's go, where? I don't care." "What will we do? Anything." City of Angels

Now I might be wrong, but I bet there has never been anything written about City Messengers?

Going back forty years, it was as a messenger that I first cut my teeth in my new career as a high flyer. In the days leading up to starting my first job my family and friends were very keen to describe me as a big wheel in the City. The reality was obviously far from the truth. 

In 1969 I think it would be fair to say the army of messengers were the arteries that made the City flow. It was the responsibility of the messenger to make sure a delivery or pick up was managed in as fast a time as possible. It was their knowledge of the various routes around the City which enabled them to get the delivery to where it was needed, in a timeframe that allowed settlement to take place. Without this knowledge, speed and dedication, the delivery would not be made on time, at a financial cost to the firm or their client.

These messengers were well known to each other as they crisscrossed the City carrying their deliveries as fast as they could to the destination. Conversations were normally on the run and rarely anything other than abridged. However, friendships were formed and when necessary one or more messengers would actually help another that might be overburdened.

Who were these messengers? By and large the majority came from working class backgrounds with many entering messengering from other industries. For example in the sixties and seventies ex-dock workers were employed and it was often attraction to people from the forces. I can remember out of work actors and sportsmen looking to fill in out of season. The messenger was usually male, all though I do remember employing a young Liz Taylor (not the famous actress, I hasten to add).

The messenger's day was not necessary long, but did entail an early start. The first call of the day would be to the London Stock Exchange central securities delivery (CSD) office in St Alphage House, off London Wall. The CSD office was a large room with pigeon holes numbered for each firm. My firm's number was 590. In the box were various deliveries of paper communicating information between Jobber and Broker, for example Names. Names, I will describe in another article but they were effectively delivery chits with the name of the broker that was to receive the shares along with the price and consideration to settle plus stamp tax. Other items might include cheques and account information for settlement on account day.

Opposite the pigeon holes was a large counter behind which were a workforce of women ready to shell out stock transfer forms. However, to get these you had to bellow your firms name and number and one of the women would serve the messenger, sometimes the conversations were a tad bawdy but always jovial. Today not PC

Picking up from the CSD at about 8am would bring the messenger into the office to get ready for the next delivery back to the CSD. This would be at about 10am. The final time for delivering stock transfer forms (remember they were all paper transfers in those days) was 11.30am. At the CSD the women would receive the stock transfer forms attached to a pink delivery sheet that detailed each transfer and the amount due for payment. The final total of the pink sheet would be the cheque amount the delivering firm would receive from the CSD at 1.30pm. The CSD would add up and check each delivery as good (returning back anything they thought was a bad delivery) and put the transfers into a bag ready for collection by the messenger.

This was an extremely busy and superbly run operation that on the whole was efficient and enabled firms to settle all their deliveries without sending a messenger to each broker/jobber.

By 1.30pm the messenger was back at the CSD delivering cheques to the CSD for the central delivery service plus any other cheques into the pigeon holes. Between 11.30 and 1pm the messenger would deliver interoffice, transfers that for whatever reason could not be delivered by the CSD 11.30am deadline.

Picking up the cheques and taking them back to the office they were recorded in the firm's accounts and paying in slips made to pay the cheque into the firm's bank account. Banking finished at 3pm so it was usually a run between CSD, the firms office and then the bank.

By 3pm the messenger's day was mainly complete but not quite. They may have to take transfers to the Registrars to register the transfer or to certify against a holding; more of that later.

Other tasks might entail visiting the London Stock Exchange floor to do the odd job for the firm's partners. The messengers
would normally have their lunch break between 3pm and 4pm. This would not be in
the pub as in those days licensing laws closed the Pubs at 3pm and they didn't
open again until 5pm.

Today messengers are not the same, in virtually every way, from what I have described. In those day's being a Messenger could be a fine starting point for a young person from the wrong side of the tracks needing a break into get into the City. It taught them how to keep deadlines, how to get about the City and how to take responsibility. It taught them how to work with different types of people and build friendships. It taught humility and provided a basis to build a career. Today messengers are far less needed and their job although still important does not have the range and interest that encouraged people with ambition to learn and develop.

Messengering was once a breeding ground of new talent, where today it has a stagnant appeal for career minded people.

I enjoyed my start in the City as a messenger and I respect all those people from the many different walks of life that taught me so much. The ability to find fun where there really was none and their fortitude to get the job done is a lesson we all could learn today.