"The Coffee Houses of Augustan London"

A Topic of abiding interest.
From History Today (Volume: 32 Issue: 10 1982):

John D. Pelzer explains how the casual gathering of like-minded coffee-drinkers would influence British political and intellectual life for decades.

Coffeehouse in London, 17th century

Around 1700, Ned Ward, in his journal the London Spy, lampooned an institution which had captured a city – the London coffee-house:

There was a rabble going hither and thither, reminding me of a swarm of rats in a ruinous cheese-store. Some came, others went; some were scribbling, others were talking; some were drinking (coffee), some smoking, and some arguing; the whole place stank of tobacco like the cabin of a barge. On the corner of a long table, close by the armchair, was lying a Bible... Beside it were earthenware pitchers, long clay pipes, a little fire on the hearth, and over it the huge coffee-pot. Beneath a small book-shelf, on which were bottles, cups, and an advertisement for a beutifier to improve the complexion, was hanging a parliamentary ordinance against drinking and the use of bad language. The walls were decorated with gilt frames, much as a smithy is decorated with horseshoes. In the frames were rarities; phials of a yellowish elixir, favourite pills and hair-tonics, packets of snuff, tooth-powder made of coffee-grounds, caramels and cough lozenges... Had not my friend told me that he had brought me to a coffee-house, I would have regarded the place as the big booth of a cheap-jack.

Much as Ward chided the city's population for the 'quality' of its entertainments, he ended by confessing, 'When I had sat there for a while, and taken in my surroundings, I myself felt inclined for a cup of coffee.' Thus, the man whose object was to expose the 'vanities and vices of the town' was captivated by the ambience of the coffee-house. While the coffee-house was not unique to the city, Ned Ward came close to describing the elements which made the London coffee-house different from all others, and it was just these differences which accounted for the place of this establishment in the social history of London.

In 1652, Pasqua Rosee opened a coffee-house in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, London. A native of Smyrna, a port in Western Turkey, where the young man had learned to prepare the beverage, Rosee had been brought to London by a merchant named Daniel Edwards, whose friends so liked the unique brew that he allowed his servant to open the city's first coffee-house. The venture was an immediate success, so much so that large numbers of coffeehouses were established throughout the city in imitation of the first. From its unpretentious beginnings in Cornhill, the coffee-house quickly became the centre of London social life as well as one of the city's most remarkable social institutions.

The coffee-house itself was not unique to London. As Francis Bacon noted in his Sylva Sylvarum in 1627, 'They have in Turkey a drink called Coffee... and they take it, and sit at it in their Coffee Houses, which are like our Taverns.' Yet in London the coffee-house was unique in the extent to which it entrenched itself as an institution in the social, cultural, commercial, and political life of the city. 'Foreigners remarked that the coffee-house was that which especially distinguished London from all other cities,' wrote Thomas Macauley in his History of England , 'that the coffee-house was the Londoner's home, and that those who wished to find a gentleman commonly asked, not whether he lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but whether he frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow.'

The London coffee-houses provided a gathering place where, for a penny admission charge, any man who was reasonably dressed could smoke his long, clay pipe, sip a dish of coffee, read the newsletters of the day, or enter into conversation with other patrons. At the period when journalism was in its infancy and the postal system was unorganised and irregular, the coffee-house provided a centre of communication for news and information. Runners were sent round to the coffee-house to report major events of the day, such as victory in battle or political upheaval, and the newsletters and gazettes of the day were distributed chiefly in the coffee-house. Most of the establishments functioned as reading rooms, for the cost of the newspapers and pamphlets was included in the admission charge. In addition, bulletins announcing sales, sailings, and auctions covered the walls of the establishments, providing valuable information to the businessman who conducted much of his business from a table at his favourite coffee-house.

Naturally, this dissemination of news led to the dissemination of ideas, and the coffee-house served as a forum for their discussion. As the eminent social historian G.M. Trevelyan observed: 'The "Universal liberty of speech of the English nation"... was the quintessence of Coffee House life.'

The patrons of the coffee-houses agreed to conform to the strict rules of the establishments. According to the posted 'Rules and Orders of the Coffee House,' all men were equal in these establishments, and none need give his place to a 'Finer' man. Anyone who swore was made to 'forfeit twelvepence', and the man who began a quarrel 'shall give each man a dish t'atone the sin'. 'Maudlin lovers' were forbidden 'here in Corners to mourn,' for all were expected to 'be brisk, and talk, but not too much', 'Sacred Things' must be excluded from conversation, and the patrons could neither 'profane Scriptures, nor saucily wrong Affairs of State with an irreverent tongue'. In many establishments, games of chance as well as cards were prohibited, and any wager was limited to five shillings, a sum which was to 'be spent In such Good Liquor as the House doth vent'.

Even during the plague and the great fire that followed it, Londoners continued to visit their favourite coffee-houses. Neither Samuel Pepys nor Daniel Defoe, for example, could be persuaded to forgo his daily visit to the coffee-house during this dreadful time, but like every citizen, each was prudent. Patrons of the coffee-houses were no longer prepared to talk freely with strangers, and would approach even close acquaintances only after inquiring after their health and that of the family at home. The plague and the fire did much to curtail the prosperity and popularity of the coffee-house, but only for a short time. Once these dangers were past, the coffee-house again assumed its place as the major social institution of its day.

Almost from their inception, the London coffee-houses each began to develop its own specialised clientele, and each soon became identified as the meeting place for a particular occupation, interest group, or type of specialised activity. By and large, the type of clientele was determined by the area of London in which the coffee-house was located.

Coffee-houses such as Lloyd's or Garraway's, located in the area around the Royal Exchange, were, for example, the gathering places for businessmen of the city, and those such as the St. James and Cocoa-Tree, located in Westminster, were frequented by politicians. Many of the coffee-houses near St. Paul's Cathedral were the haunts of clergymen and intellectuals who gathered to discuss theology and philosophy,. Some coffeehouses became so identified with specific groups or interests that an early London newspaper, The Tatler, printed its stories under coffee-house headings. As Sir Richard Steele wrote in the first number of the newspaper in 1709: 'All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment shall be under the Article of White's Chocolate-house; Poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house; Learning, under the title of Graecian; Foreign and Domestick News, you will have from St. James' Coffee-house.'

The coffee-house established by William Urwin in Russell Street, Covent Garden, achieved a fame far beyond its founder's hopes when it became the haunt of London's literati . The presiding genius and chief arbiter of literary taste at Will's Coffee-house was the poet John Dryden. For thirty years, Dryden shaped the public taste and served as an inspiration to poets and writers of prose by passing judgment on the latest poem or play. So great was Dryden's reputation, and with it the reputation of Will's, that the most famous of England's men of letters, including Pepys and Pope, frequented the coffee-house. While its patrons sipped their coffee, they discussed the sonnet form or the literary merits of blank verse. One group debated whether Paradise Lost should have been written in rhyme. In addition to serious discussion of literature, the patrons of Will's turned their talents to lampoons and libels, so visitors to the establishment could be assured of entertainment of one sort or another, entertainment which owed much to the influence of Dryden.
Yet Will's was not without its critics. Jonathan Swift spoke disparagingly of the company at Will's:

The worst conversation I ever remember to have heard in my life was that at Will's Coffeehouse, where the wits (as they were called) used formerly to assemble; that is to say, five or six men who had writ plays, or at least prologues, or had share in a miscellany, came thither, and entertained one another with their trifling composures in so important an air, as if they had been the noblest efforts of human nature, or that the fate of kingdoms depended on them.

And after the death of Dryden, the reputation of Will's began to decline. In The Tatler of April 8th, 1709, Steele reported the changes which had altered the character of Will's....

...MUCH MORE 

Possibly also of interest:

"The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse" 
...Here are the main establishments frequented by the stockjobbers and other denizens: