THE COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD LONDON Page 6

Some Famous Coffee Houses

Among the famous English coffee houses of the seventeenth-eighteenth century period were St. James's, Will's, Garraway's, White's, Slaughter's, the Grecian, Button's, Lloyd's, Tom's, and Don Saltero's.

St. James's was a Whig house frequented by members of Parliament, with a fair sprinkling of literary stars. Garraway's catered to the gentry of the period, many of whom naturally had Tory proclivities.

One of the notable coffee houses of Queen Anne's reign was Button's. Here Addison could be found almost every afternoon and evening, along with Steele, Davenant, Carey, Philips, and other kindred minds. Pope was a member of the same coffee house club for a year, but his inborn irascibility eventually led him to drop out of it.

At Button's a lion's head, designed by Hogarth after the Lion of Venice, "a proper emblem of knowledge and action, being all head and paws," was set up to receive letters and papers for the Guardian. The Tatler and the Spectator were born in the coffee house, and probably English prose would never have received the impetus given it by the essays of Addison and Steele had it not been for coffee house associations.

Pope's famous Rape of the Lock grew out of coffee-house gossip. The poem itself contains one charming passage on coffee.Another frequenter of the coffee houses of London, when he had the money to do so, was Daniel Defoe, whose Robinson Crusoe was the precursor of the English novel. Henry Fielding, one of the greatest of all English novelists, loved the life of the more bohemian coffee houses, and was, in fact, induced to write his first great novel, Joseph Andrews, through coffee-house criticisms of Richardson's Pamela.

Other frequenters of the coffee houses of the period were Thomas Gray and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Garrick was often to be seen at Tom's in Birchin Lane, where also Chatterton might have been found on many an evening before his untimely death.

The London Pleasure Gardens

The second half of the eighteenth century was covered by the reigns of the Georges. The coffee houses were still an important factor in London life, but were influenced somewhat by the development of gardens in which were served tea, chocolate, and other drinks, as well as coffee. At the coffee houses themselves, while coffee[Pg 81] remained the favorite beverage, the proprietors, in the hope of increasing their patronage, began to serve wine, ale, and other liquors. This seems to have been the first step toward the decay of the coffee house.

A Trio of Notables at Button's in 1730

The figure in the cloak is Count Viviani; of the figures facing the reader, the draughts player is Dr. Arbuthnot, and the figure standing is assumed to be Pope]

The coffee houses, however, continued to be the centers of intellectual life. When Samuel Johnson and David Garrick came together to London, literature was temporarily in a bad way, and the hack writers of the time dwelt in Grub Street.

It was not until after Johnson had met with some success, and had established the first of his coffee-house clubs at the Turk's Head, that literature again became a fashionable profession.

This really famous literary club met at the Turk's Head from 1763 to 1783. Among the most notable members were Johnson, the arbiter of English prose; Oliver Goldsmith; Boswell, the biographer; Burke, the orator; Garrick, the actor; and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the painter. Among the later members were Gibbon, the historian; and Adam Smith, the political economist.

Certain it is that during the sway of the English coffee house, and at least partly through its influence, England produced a better prose literature, as embodied alike in her essays, literary criticisms, and novels, than she ever had produced before.

The advent of the pleasure garden brought coffee out into the open in England; and one of the reasons why gardens, such as Ranelagh and Vauxhall, began to be more frequented than the coffee houses was that they were popular resorts for women as well as for men. All kinds of beverages were served in them; and soon the women began to favor tea as an afternoon drink. At least, the great development in the use of tea dates from this period; and many of these resorts called themselves tea gardens.

The use of coffee by this time, however, was well established in the homes as a breakfast and dinner beverage, and such consumption more than made up for any loss sustained through the gradual decadence of the coffee house. Yet signs of the change in national taste that arrived with the Georges were not wanting; for the active propaganda of the British East India Company was fairly well launched during Queen Anne's reign.

The London pleasure gardens of the eighteenth century were unique. At one time there was a "mighty maze" of them. Their season extended from April or May to August or September. At first there was no charge for admission, but Warwick Wroth tells us that visitors usually purchased cheese cakes, syllabubs, tea, coffee and ale.

The four best-known London gardens were Vauxhall; Marylebone; Cuper's, where the charge for admission subsequently was fixed at not less than a shilling; and Ranelagh, where the charge of half a crown included "the Elegant Regale" of tea, coffee, and bread and butter.

The pleasure gardens provided walks, rooms for dancing, skittle grounds, bowling greens, variety entertainments, and promenade concerts; and not a few places were given over to fashionable gambling and racing.

The Vauxhall Gardens, one of the most favored resorts of pleasure-seeking Londoners, were located on the Surrey side of the Thames, a short distance east of Vauxhall Bridge. They were originally known as the New Spring Gardens (1661), to distinguish them from the old Spring Gardens at Charing Cross. They became famous in the reign of Charles II. Vauxhall was celebrated for its walks, lit with thousands of lamps, its musical and other performances, suppers, and fireworks. High and low were to be found there, and the drinking of tea and coffee in the arbors was a feature. The illustration shows the garden brightly illuminated by lanterns and lamps on some festival occasion. Coffee and tea were served in the arbors.

Vauxhall Gardens on a Gala Night

The Ranelagh, "a place of public entertainment," erected at Chelsea in 1742, was a kind of Vauxhall under cover. The principal room, known as the Rotunda, was circular in shape, 150 feet in diameter, and[Pg 83] had an orchestra in the center and tiers of boxes all around. Promenading and taking refreshments in the boxes were the principal divertisements. Except on gala nights of masquerades and fireworks, only tea, coffee, bread and butter were to be had at Ranelagh.

The Rotunda in Ranelagh Gardens With the Company at Breakfast—1751

In the group of gardens connected with mineral springs was the Dog and Duck (St. George's Spa), which became at last a tea garden and a dancing saloon of doubtful repute.

Still another division, recognized by Wroth, consisted mainly of tea gardens, among them Highbury Barn, The Canonbury House, Hornsey and Copenhagen House, Bagnigge Wells, and White Conduit House. The two last named were the classic tea gardens of the period. Both were provided with "long rooms" in case of rain, and for indoor promenades with organ music. Then there were the Adam and Eve tea gardens, with arbors for tea-drinking parties, which subsequently became the Adam and Eve Tavern and Coffee House. Well known were the Bayswater Tea Gardens and the Jews Harp House and Tea Gardens. All these were provided with neat, "genteel" boxes, let into the hedges and alcoves, for tea and coffee drinkers.

Locating the Notable Coffee Houses

Garraway's, 3 'Change Alley, Cornhill, was a place for great mercantile transactions. Thomas Garway, the original proprietor, was a tobacconist and coffee man, who claimed to be the first that sold tea in England, although not at this address. The later Garraway's was long famous as a sandwich and drinking room for sherry, pale ale, and punch, in addition to tea and coffee. It is said that the sandwich-maker was occupied two hours in cutting and arranging the sandwiches for the day's consumption. After the "great fire" of 1666 Garraway's moved into the same place in Exchange Alley where Elford had been before the fire. Here he claimed to have the oldest coffee house in London; but the ground on which Bowman's had stood was occupied later by the Virginia and the Jamaica coffee houses. The latter was damaged by the fire of 1748 which consumed Garraway's and Elford's .

Will's, the predecessor of Button's, first had the title of the Red Cow, then of[Pg 84] the Rose. It was kept by William Urwin, and was on the north side of Russell Street at the corner of Bow Street. "It was Dryden who made Will's coffee house the great resort of the wits of his time." (Pope and Spence.) The room in which the poet was accustomed to sit was on the first floor; and his place was the place of honor by the fireside in the winter, and at the corner of the balcony, looking over the street, in fine weather; he called the two places his winter and his summer seat. This was called the dining-room floor. The company did not sit in boxes as subsequently, but at various tables which were dispersed through the room. Smoking was permitted in the public room; it was then so much in vogue that it does not seem to have been considered a nuisance. Here, as in other similar places of meeting, the visitors divided themselves into parties; and we are told by Ward that the young beaux and wits, who seldom approached the principal table, thought it a great honor to have a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box. After Dryden's death Will's was transferred to a house opposite, and became Button's, "over against Thomas's in Covent Garden." Thither also Addison transferred much company from Thomas's. Here Swift first saw Addison. Hither also came "Steele, Arbuthnot and many other wits of the time." Button's continued in vogue until Addison's death and Steele's retirement into Wales, after which the coffee drinkers went to the Bedford, dinner parties to the Shakespeare. Button's was subsequently known as the Caledonien.

Garraway's Coffee House in 'Change Alley

Garway (or Garraway) claimed to have been first to sell Tea in England

Button's Coffee House, Great Russell Street

Afterward it became the Caledonien
From a water color by T.H. Shepherd

Slaughter's, famous as the resort of painters and sculptors in the eighteenth century, was situated at the upper end of the west side of St. Martin's Lane. Its first landlord was Thomas Slaughter, 1692. A second Slaughter's (New Slaughter's) was established in the same street in 1760, when the original Slaughter's adopted the name of Old Slaughter's. It was torn down in 1843–44. Among the notables who frequented it were Hogarth; young Gainsborough; Cipriani; Haydon; Roubiliac; Hudson, who painted the Dilettanti portraits; M'Ardell, the mezzotinto-scraper;[Pg 85] Luke Sullivan, the engraver; Gardell, the portrait painter; and Parry, the Welsh harper.

Tom's, in Birchin Lane, Cornhill, though in the main a mercantile resort, acquired some celebrity from having been frequented by Garrick. Tom's was also frequented by Chatterton, as a place "of the best resort." Then there was Tom's in Devereux Court, Strand, and Tom's at 17 Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, opposite Button's, a celebrated resort during the reign of Queen Anne and for more than a century after.

The Grecian, Devereux Court, Strand, was originally kept by one Constantine, a Greek. From this house Steele proposed to date his learned articles in the Tatler; it is mentioned in No. 1 of the Spectator, and it was much frequented by Goldsmith. The Grecian was Foote's morning lounge. In 1843 the premises became the Grecian Chambers, with a bust of Lord Devereux, earl of Essex, over the door.

Slaughter's Coffee House, St. Martin's Lane

It was taken down in 1843
From a water color by T.H. Shepherd, 1841

Tom's Coffee House, 17 Great Russell Street

Used as a coffee house until 1804 and razed in 1865
From a water color by T.H. Shepherd