Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Pastimes/Coffee Houses

In the seventeenth-century, English coffee houses played a useful role in developing both England’s greater political freedom and England’s rise to global greatness. Coffeehouses provided a gathering place “not only for merchants but for scientists, physicians, and civic leaders, writers and poets, aristocrats and explorers, and ministers and others who celebrated the virtues of sobriety and refined social manners.” The first documented coffee house was opened in London in 1652 by a Greek Orthodox servant from western Turkey, Pasqua Rosee. By the late 1690s coffee houses were so common that in London there were over 2,000 known houses, which was roughly equated to one for every 300 inhabitants of the city. The coffee bean was commonly called the ‘Mahometan Berry’ and was sold as bottomless coffee for a penny. The coffee houses were sometimes called “penny universities” because for the cost of a penny, a person could buy a cup and participate in various discussions on a variety of topics.

Coffee houses came to represent of the emergence of a middle class that was, as described in The Character of a Coffee-House, 1673, made up of a ‘hodge-podge’ mixture of people. “The growth of commerce and the emergence of London’s politically aware middle class are entwined with the establishments of England’s coffeehouses.” Coffee houses became known as a source spot for the latest business news, a sort of information centre. One of the more famous coffee houses was opened by Edward Lloyd in the City of London which became a meeting place for merchants, ship owners, ship captains, insurance brokers and others involved in overseas trade. Many coffee houses actually began to circulate their own ‘news pamphlets’ and in turn made more money from the newsletters than from the coffee. The benefit of news updates was not the only benefit of coffee houses that attributed to their popularity. Coffee-Houses Vindicated, 1675 A.D presents a positive account of coffee houses as well as outlining their many benefits such as coffee being viewed as a healthy drink in comparison to gin or ale; coffee stimulated the brain’s activity and gave people energy. Coffee was a cheaper alternative to alcohol that dominated much of England’s life and became social hubs. “Foreign visitors to London said that the coffee houses were the most agreeable feature in London.” Moreover, coffee houses did not have the noise and potential drunken violence commonly found at taverns and inns, making it a good place for men to conduct business. The Coffee-Houses Vindicated, 1675 A.D warns against concluding any sort of contracts at taverns of inns because alcohol affected the brain thereby making men “drowsy and indisposed for business.” The alternative and beneficial coffee houses were also a safe place for men to do their business due to the increasingly difficult and dangerous risk of robbery. Lastly, the document expresses that coffee houses became a way of civilized and informative life that reflected the “specific character of their locality and reinforced it: such as a business, the church, politics or the arts.”

Coffee houses were so popular that some of the fathers of the Industrial Revolution were regular coffee house patrons; Joseph Priestly, Richard Kerwin, William Nicholson, and James Watt. As seen in The Character of a Coffee-House, 1673, despite the raging popularity of coffee houses, critics still existed. This document would represent a negative account of coffee houses claiming that it is a “lay conventide, good-fellowship turned puritan, [and] ill-husbandry in masquerade.” While wives often complained their husbands wasted too much time in coffee houses, the earliest critics were Christian authorities who saw the houses as an Islamic plot to somehow poison the Christian world. The ‘hodge-podge’ mixture of people is also discriminated against as well as the amount of time people spent in coffee houses which prevented workers from their places of work and actually working. Many of the fears and negative views of coffee houses were regarding fears about the Ottoman Empire. Coffee had to be imported from the empire which might inevitably undermine the sale of English ale, consequently lowering the demand for English grain. The high point of English coffee houses was from 1652 to 1780 and afterwards began to decline with many gone by 1830; some coffee houses became elite clubs for the wealthy few. Coffee houses never completely died out, but the “distinctive coffee house culture as a popular English culture icon had gone.”