As early as the year 1740, it is recorded that Mr. Baker, Master of Lloyd’s Coffee-house, in Lombard Street, waited on Sir Robert Walpole with the news of Admiral Vernon’s capture of Portobello. This was the first account received thereof, and, as it proved to be true, Sir Robert was pleased to order Mr. Baker a handsome present.
Another resort, somewhat similar to Lloyd’s, was Garraway’s Coffee-house—the first place where tea was sold in England. It was during the time of the South Sea Bubble that this became the scene of great mercantile transactions. The original proprietor was Thomas Garway, tobacconist and coffee-man. He issued the following curious circular: “Tea in England hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes for ten pounds the pound weight, and in respect of its former scarceness and dearness, it hath been only used as a regalia in high treatments and entertainments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees till the year 1651. The said Thomas Garway did purchase a quantity thereof, and first publicly sold the said tea in leaf and drink, made according to the directions of the most knowing merchants and travellers into those eastern countries; and upon knowledge and experience of the said Garway’s continued care and industry in obtaining the best tea, and making drink thereof, very many noblemen, physicians, merchants, and gentlemen of quality, have ever since sent to him for the said leaf, and daily resort to his house in Exchange Alley, aforesaid, to drink the drink thereof; and to the end that all persons of eminence and quality, gentlemen and others, who have occasion for tea in leaf, may be supplied, these are to give notice that the said Thomas Garway hath tea to sell from ‘sixteen to fifty shillings per pound.’”
In 1673 there were some great sales of wine at Garraway’s. These took place “by the candle”—that is, by auction while an inch of candle burnt. In the Tatler, No. 147, we read: “Upon my coming home last night, I found a very handsome present of French wine left for me, as a taste of 216 hogsheads, which are to be put to sale at £20 a hogshead, at Garraway’s Coffee-house, in Exchange Alley,” etc. A sale by candle is not, however, by candlelight, but during the day. Such sales took place by daylight, and at the commencement of the sale, when the auctioneer had read a description of the property and the conditions on which it was to be disposed of, a piece of candle, usually an inch long, was lit, the last bidder at the time the light went out being declared the purchaser.
Garraway’s was famous for its sandwiches and sherry, pale ale, and punch. The sandwich-maker, it was said, occupied two hours in cutting and arranging the sandwiches before the day’s consumption commenced. The sale-room was on the first-floor, with a small rostrum for the seller, and a few rough wooden seats for the buyers. Sales of drugs, mahogany, and timber, were its speciality in the fifties of the last century, when twenty or thirty property and other sales sometimes took place in a day. The walls and windows of the lower room were covered with sale placards—unsentimental evidences of the mutability of human affairs.
In 1840 and 1841, when the tea speculation was at its height, and prices were fluctuating sixpence and eightpence per pound on the arrival of every mail, Garraway’s was frequented every night by a host of the smaller fry of dealers, and there was much more excitement than ever occurred on ’Change when the most important intelligence arrived. Champagne flowed, and everyone ate and drank, and went, as he pleased, without the least question about the bill; yet everything was paid, though such a state of affairs continued for several months.
At one time many taverns were the meeting-places of “mug-house clubs,” amusing resorts where gentlemen, lawyers, and tradesmen used to meet in a great room, seldom under a hundred in number.
Such assemblies usually had a president, who sat in an armchair some steps higher than the rest of the company, to keep the whole room in order. A harp played all the time at the lower end of the room; and every now and then one or other of the company rose and entertained the rest with a song, some being good singers. Here nothing was drunk but ale, and every gentleman had his separate mug, which he chalked on the table where he sat, as it was brought in. A free-and-easy atmosphere pervaded the place, and everyone did and said exactly what he pleased.
A number of these “mug-house clubs” were to be found in Cheapside and its vicinity, and others about Covent Garden, a district which formerly abounded in well-known coffee-houses. In the eighteenth century, in Russell Street alone, were three of the most celebrated: Will’s, Button’s, and Tom’s. Will’s, as is well known, was closely connected with Dryden, the Tatler, and the Spectator; and its wits’ room, on the first-floor, was celebrated throughout the town. So was Button’s, with its lion’s head letter-box, and the young poets in the back room. Tom’s, No. 17, on the north side of Russell Street, and of a somewhat later date, was taken down in 1865. The premises remained, with but little alteration, long after they ceased to be a coffee-house. It was named after its original proprietor, Thomas West, who, November 26, 1722, threw himself, in a delirium, from the second-floor window into the street, and died immediately. The upper portion of the premises was the coffee-house, under which lived T. Lewis, the bookseller, Pope’s publisher.
Will’s Coffee-house, known as the Wits’, which was very celebrated in its day, was at No. 23, Russell Street, Bow Street. Dryden first made it a resort of wits. The poet used to sit in a room on the first-floor, and his customary seat was 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. In the eighteenth century this room became the dining-room. In Dryden’s day people did not sit in boxes, as subsequently, but at various tables which were dispersed through the room. Smoking was permitted in the public room, and was then much in vogue; indeed, it does not seem to have been considered a nuisance, as it was some years later. Here, as in other similar places of meeting, the visitors divided themselves into parties; the young beaux and wits, who seldom approached the principal table, thought it a great honour to have a pinch out of Dryden’s snuff-box.
In later years Will’s Coffee-house became an open market for libels and lampoons.