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The Coffeehouses of London
Bob Biderman
E
ngland - the home of insipid tea drinkers where even now adecent cup of coffee is available only to those in the know- wasn’t always short of good cafés. Quite the opposite - backwhen it all began, in the later part of the 17th century and well intothe 18th, London was overowing with the liquid said to resemble‘syrup of soot or essence of old shoes’ and places to drink it in.Coffee was rst introduced to England in 1610 through theactivities of the East India Company (as recently discovered lettersnow attest) but it took another half century before it gained a publicfollowing via the Turkish connection. By 1670 the coffee housemovement had burst onto the London scene with such vigour thathardly a City street could be traversed without seeing its sign - ane glass lantern of a certain shape indicating that somewhere atthe end of a dark passageway you could pay a penny at the bar and gain entry to a world of art or intrigue, never dull and oftenboisterous.London at the time of the Restoration was a city still trying tond its place in the world. Like some famished traveller greedilyconsuming everything in reach, its waist-line seemed to burst eachweek. The streets were full of merchants and hustlers, itinerantbrokers crowding the pavement before the new stock exchange
 From the archives of 
Cafe Magazine
www.cafemagazine.co.uk 
 
was even built. It was a city on the move without knowing whereit was moving to. Journalists abounded yet there were hardlyany journals. There were more doctors than the universitiescould provide, more actors than the theatres could handle, moreinsurance agents than the cargo ships could oat.The feudal world, which had been turned upside down by evenso tame a revolution as the English, had set its otsam on the city’sshores. Displaced country folk ooded into the gin mills which letthem dream once more of verdant lands until they puked up whatlittle remained in their emaciated systems.But demon gin had its antithesis in another drink which didn’tsuppress the bleakness of life. This new drink, coffee, stimulatedthought and thus accorded well with the contrasting spirit of thetimes. If you live in chaos and don’t know where you’re going, thereare two choices. The rst, and by far the easiest, is avoidance- drug yourself up and hope to enjoy the ride through hell. Thesecond is taking advantage of the breakdown in entrenched power to formulate ideas for an alternative future. It was to those whomade the second choice that the new café system appealed.Cafés also served the developing urban infrastructure at a timewhen communication systems were rudimentary, to say the least.Without telephones, telegraphs or even a fully functioning postofce, person-to-person contact was the only effective way of getting news or spreading slander.Not only did the coffee houses disseminate news, they alsomanufactured it. What went on at Man’s or Will’s might have beengrist for the boys at the Antiquarian. Indeed, most of the larger coffee houses produced their own newsletters which were widelycirculated within the network.Compared to the gin mills and the beer houses, these caféswere wonders of sobriety. Each conformed to a set of laws, writtenor unwritten, which stipulated proper decorum. One anonymouscustomer writing in the Coffee house Gazette could hardly restrainhis rapture: ‘They are the sanctuary of health, the nursery of temperance, the delight of frugality, the academy of civility andthe free school of ingenuity.’ Well, not quite. To enter cost him a
 
penny.Amongst the numerous houses that sprang up during thoseyears (from 1675 through the turn of the century) the followingstood out:
Man’s.
Established by Dr. Alexander Man, it stood on theriver front right behind Charing Cross. Though,like all coffee houses of the day, none but the most obnoxious wererefused entry, still it was considered to set ‘the standard of taste’.A contemporary observer described it rather well: ‘At the end of the entry, a few steps led to an old-fashioned room of a cathedraltenement furnished like a knight’s dining room, with clean andpolished oors and nut-brown shining tables on which stood rowsof steaming dishes of coffee and wax candles...it was the resort of place-hunters, bribe-lovers and Puritan-haters and frequented byFrench agents and mysterious messengers for whose special usesome side rooms were reserved.’
The Puritan’s
Coffee House. Locatedin Aldergate street, theconversation here was purely political. The faithful dwelt on thedays of Cromwell and dreamed of revolution.
The Widow’s
Coffee House. Set insuburban Islington, mainlyelds back then, it was overseen by the widow, Nell Gwynne.‘The struggle up this steep ascent’, wrote a correspondent, ‘wasrewarded by the attainment of a good-sized room sufcientlycomfortable in itself...if the oor was rather broken, it was wellrubbed and if brown paper was substituted for a few windowpanes, still it commanded a green and cheerful prospect. Thepint coffee-pots were always ready by the antique and well-lledgrate and the famed Islington cakes were arraigned in astonishingnumbers along the shelves.’ Our observer went on to state thatthe place was frequented by London Apprentices who fostered thespirit of union and Freemasonry.
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