THE COFFEE HOUSES OF BRISTOL
Those who walk around the city centre today and comment on the number of coffee shops that have mushroomed in recent years, may be surprised to note that this is not exactly a new phenomena.
Go back three hundreds years and there were more coffee houses than sprinkles on a Starbucks’ latte. But in those days, they provided a wide range of services.and coffee houses have been described as the seventeenth and eighteenth century version of the Internet, places of information exchange and discussion.
From its unpretentious beginnings, the coffee house became a remarkable institution, at the centre of social, cultural, commercial, and political life.
Coffee was first introduced into England in 1610, through the trading activities of the East India Company, but it took another half century before it gained a public following. By 1670, the coffee house movement had burst onto the London scene and they became so prominent that hardly a City street could be traversed without meeting one.
Bristol, the country’s second city, saw its first coffee house, called the “Elephant,” open in 1677, although there is evidence that traders had been selling coffee before that date.
The “Elephant” was situated in All Saints Lane, close to the Merchants’ Tolzey, adjoining All Saints’ Church. The Tolzey Walk was a covered colonnade, erected in 1583, where merchants did business on bronze pedestals called 'Nails', the Nails that now stand outside the Corn Exchange.
By eight o’clock in the morning, the coffee houses and taverns surrounding the Tolzey were crowded with traders, ship owners and manufacturers. Most merchants did not have offices but used the coffee houses as their place of business. Bulletins announcing sales, sailings, and auctions covered the walls of the establishments, providing valuable information to the businessman who operated from a table at his favourite coffee house.
Even doctors and lawyer would use them as their consulting rooms.
The coffee houses also provided a gathering place where, for a penny admission charge, any man of any class, who was reasonably dressed, could sip a dish of coffee, read the newsletters of the day, or enter into conversation with other patrons. At a period when journalism was in its infancy and the postal system was unorganised and irregular, the coffee house functioned as reading rooms, for the cost of newspapers and pamphlets was included in the admission charge.
Naturally, this dissemination of news led to the discussion of ideas, and the coffee house served as the main forum for that debate.
As the social historian G. M. Trevelyan observed: 'The 'Universal liberty of speech of the English nation'...was the quintessence of Coffee House life.' Compared to the taverns, these coffee houses were wonders of sobriety. Each conformed to a set of laws, written or unwritten, which stipulated proper decorum. One anonymous customer described a coffee house as such, ‘They are the sanctuary of health, the nursery of temperance, the delight of frugality, the academy of civility and the free school of ingenuity.’
Every other day, depending upon the weather and the state of the road, the mail and some copies of newspapers arrived in Bristol, from London. The newspapers went straight to the coffee houses, where for the price of a small cup of Mocha, people could read the latest news and hear the latest political gossip. Often, the newspapers were read aloud. Coffee houses were also places of learned debate, with scientific lectures and literary discussion.
It is worth noting that Bristol did not acquire its first newspaper until 1702, when William Bonny published the Bristol Post-Boy, but it contained very little news.
The Rev. William Goldwin, headmaster of the Grammar School, in his 1712 poetic description of Bristol, talked scathingly of those who frequented the coffee houses, particularly those who “ o’er Turkish Lap and smoaky Whiffs debate.”
Two of Britain’s leading business institutions can be traced back to their coffee house origins. Edward Lloyd’s coffee house was established in London in the 1680s and from a meeting place for ship owners, captains and merchants, it eventually became Lloyds of London. In a similar way, stockbrokers who frequented Jonathan’s coffee house, moved into a building that became the London Stock Exchange.
Coffee houses soon became so numerous that they drew the attention of those in authority who, always nervous about anything that might lead to seditious talk, made an attempt to ensure that the contents of newspapers and pamphlets should be vetted in advance by the mayor or alderman.
In 1674, the popularity of this male dominated institution was amply demonstrated by the Women’s Petition Against Coffee, alleging that men were never at home during times of domestic crisis. A year later King Charles the Second tried to suppress them for very different reasons; he viewed them as hotbeds of revolution. His attempt to ban them failed, in the face of popular demand. By then coffee houses were central to both commercial and political life.
It was the English coffee house that started the practice of tipping staff, with collecting tins being labelled “To Insure Prompt Service.”
At the time that coffee houses became popular, the main drink was malt liquor and this was drunk in huge amounts. It is estimated that in 1695, the average daily consumption per man and woman was three pints plus an unspecified amount of cider. Coffee had the opposite effect to alcohol, stimulating rather than dulling the senses. As sober, quiet venues, they allowed people to have polite and reasoned discussion. Often called the “penny universities,” the price of a cup of coffee, they became a European wide institution.
In 1718, the Trustees of All Saints granted the room over the Church vestry to John Cooke. Cooke’s Coffee House became the most popular in the city and in 1723, it was renamed ‘The London Coffee House’.
Sometimes politics directly affected the coffee houses and in 1785, following Britain’s defeat in the American War of Independence, the ‘American Coffee House’ in Broad Street changed its name to the more patriotic-sounding ‘British Coffee House’. The coffee house was situated next to the White Lion tavern, home of those who had favoured King George’s confrontational policy towards the rebellious colonials.
On one occasion, in contrast to the civilised debate within the coffee house, a drunken mob had emerged from the tavern and “tarred and feathered” effigies of John Hancock and John Adams, two of the American leaders, and hanged them in front of the American Coffee House.
There was the Hot Well coffee house, to serve those who frequented the spring, the Castle coffee house in Castle Street, the Custom House coffee house in Queen Square, the Gibb coffee house in Prince’s Street and many, many others.
By the 1790s, the fashion of drinking coffee in public had ended and coffee houses were no longer popular. Foster’s Coffee House, in Corn Street, closed. For many years, however, one of the roles of the coffee house was remembered, when inn keepers retained the “coffee room” as a place for those who wanted to quietly read a newspaper.
There were a number of reasons why the coffee houses lost their popularity. In London, a number of them reinvented themselves as exclusive clubs, the most well known being St. James’ and White’s. This was in contrast with the coffee houses, where entry had been open to all.
The greater availability of newspapers also discouraged people from gathering at the coffee house. But perhaps the main reason for their decline was the fact that the British East India Company had begun to import another exotic brew that drew a popular following, “tea”..
COLSTON AND THE SLAVE TRADE
It has been suggested that Bristol should be the site for a permanent national exhibition about the African slave trade. Perhaps it will make a gesture of that magnitude to make the city finally confront the demons of its past — there’s no getting away from the fact that the wealth of modern Bristol is built on slavery.
At the height of the slave trade, in the mid-18th Century the Bristol economy and the Society of Merchant Venturers thrived on slavery. For example, sugar was returned to the port from the plantations where the slaves were sold, so refineries were built in the city; the refineries needed power, which was provided by the coal mines of Kingswood.
The rapid growth of the city and its prosperity in the 18th Century and beyond was significandy based on the brutality and immorality of slavery.
Many of the families and institutions that still prosper and hold considerable influence in the city made their money from slavery.
The legacy of Edward Colston dominates Bristol. A statue of the MP and slave trader stands in the Centre near the Colston Hall, (opposite the Colston Tower), there are at least a dozen streets named after him and, of course, there’s Colston’s Schools. There’s even a Colston Bun.
Edward Colston was born in Bristol in 1636, the son of a wealthy merchant He made his money initially by trading with Spain and other Mediterranean countries. However, although he went to great lengths to keep it a secret, Colston became a member of the Royal African Company in 1680 and took an active part in the planning and financing of slaving ventures to Africa, his name appearing in the company records for 11 years.
The African slave trade began in Bristol in 1698 when the London-based Royal African Company lost its monopoly on English trade with West Africa. Between 1698 and the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 more than 2,000 ships set sail from Bristol in search of slaves on the West African coast It’s estimated that 500,000 slaves were carried on Bristol vessels out of a total trade of 2.8 million (The Bristol Slave Traders:A Collective Partratt, David Richardson), although other researchers put the figure as high as eight million (A Shocking History of Bristol, Derek Robinson). As many as a quarter of the slaves died or were murdered at sea. So it’s possible that two million bodies were thrown overboard from slave ships.
Liverpool and London were the other two major slave ports, but about half the slave ships that left England for Africa in 1730 sailed from Bristol the city’s share of the slave trade had fallen to 25 per cent by the 1750s as Liverpool became the dominant slave port and, by the time of abolition in 1807, Bristol had just a two per cent market share.
WEST AFRICAN TRADERS
The slave trade worked on the triangular model, making a profit on each stage of the voyage. Ships left Bristol with a cargo of cotton, brass, copper, gin or muskets, which were bartered for slaves with the West African traders. The ships then embarked on the Middle Passage to the West Indies or America where the surviving slaves were sold at a profit, often to plantation owners originally from Bristol.
The ships then returned home with a cargo of sugar or tobacco which was again sold for profit. During the 18th Century, 32 of the cities leading slave traders became members of the Merchant Venturers and 16 went on to become Master.
Naturally, the Africans fought the traders sent to capture them and many committed suicide when they were captured; thousands more were killed in mutinies or died in the dreadful conditions at sea. Perhaps most shocking of all, there is evidence of Bristol captains drowning their entire cargo of diseased slaves so that the loss could be claimed on the owners’ insurance as legal jettison’.
WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Slave ships were specially converted so they could carry the maximum number of bodies. Typically, a ship would have a hold about five foot high, so the owners built two six-foot wide platforms either side of the hold to create two decks. Slaves were driven into the hold and forced to lie on the bottom in rows until it was covered.Then another layer of people were forced Onto the platforms. On some of the larger ships a second platform was added, giving a headroom of about 20 inches for the three layers of people.
The tallest slaves were put amid-ships; the smaller ones and children were wedged into the stern.A male slave was allowed a space six foot by 16 inches; a woman was allowed five foot by 16 inches; a boy five foot by 14 inches and a girl four foot by 12 inches.
They lived, and died. in these conditions on the passage from Africa to the West Indies and America - they were seasick and had no alternative but to foul themselves.
The Africans were supposed to be brought on deck every morning to be fed and cleaned, but some captains left them in the holds for the entire journey (between six weeks and three months). Bristol merchants, sea captains and crews were responsible for the most appalling and degrading treatment of human beings.
This was a crime as great as the Holocaust.
In June 1787, the Rev Thomas Clarkson arrived in Bristol to begin a fact-finding tour of the slaving ports that was to lead to the abolition of the slave trade 20 years later. However, it was not the suffering of the Africans that began to change public opinion, but the poor treatment of the Bristol slave crews. Naturally, the Society of Merchant Venturers did everything possible to halt Clarkson’s investigations, but he persevered. He interviewed 20,000 sailors and collected equipment used on the slave ships, such as iron handcuffs, leg shackles, thumbscrews, instruments for forcing open slaves’ jaws, and branding irons.
Clarkaon set himself up in the Seven Stars pub (next to the Fleece and Firkin) whose owner was sympathetic to William Wilberforce’s anti-slavery movement Pub landlords played a key role in recruiting crews for the slaving ships, and the landlord of the Seven Stars explained to Clarkson the way the business worked and introduced him to the slaving underworld that inhabited Bristols dockside taverns. He pieced together a picture of the reality of the business and discovered that crews were recruited in three ways:
(1) Lying: men were lured from the drinking dens of Marsh Street with promises of high wages and an exotic life at sea.
(2) Doping: pub landlords were bribed to spike sailors’ drinks and they were abducted.
(3) Blackmail: the landlords encouraged men to borrow money for drink and then threatened them with jail unless they joined a slaving crew.
Once on board, the crew was forced to sign Ship’s articles legalising their poor pay; often they were paid in virtually worthless foreign currencies.
Clarkson managed to gain access to the Merchant Venturers’ records. From their own Muster Rolls, he found that the mortality rates of Bristol slave ship crews were very heavy in comparison to those of other cities involved in the triangular trade. His interviews revealed that the crews were treated appallingly by slaving captains.
Some men were murdered; sometimes a quarter of the crew died at sea from disease, ill treatment and torture - their suffering was nothing compared to the African people, but Clarkson’a revelations began to disturb the Bristol public.
PUBLIC OUTRAGE
Clarkson managed to take the murder of two seamen on board a slaver to trial, despite two slave traders sitting on the bench at the initial hearing. His witnesses all disappeared by the time the case was due to be heard, but the word was Out and the Bristol public was shocked by the treatment of their own sailors. Is seems they cared little for the suffering of the slaves, although there was an anti-slavery movement in the city led by Quakers and Methodists.
In fact, Bristol was the first city outside of London to set up a committee for the abolition of the slave trade; some 800 people volunteered to sign the first Bristol petition against the slave trade in 1788.
The Yorkshire MP William Wilberforce. the public face of the abolition campaign, came to Bristol in 1791 to encourage the local campaign. The poets Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, Hannah More, Anne Yearsley and Samuel Coleridge all wrote against the trade. John Wesley, who founded the Methodist Church, wrote against slavery and preached against the trade in the New Rooms in Broadmead.
This was one of the first political campaigns in which women played an active part and in 1787 Hannah More was instrumental in organising a boycott of West Indian slave sugar in Bristol.
Parliament first debated a motion calling for the abolition of the slave trade in 1788.The Society of Merchant Venturers and other business interests in Bristol lobbied strongly against Wilberforce and the abolitionists. claiming it would be ~'ruinous in the extreme to the petitioners engaged in the manufacture, but the mischief would extend most widely throwing hundreds of common labouring people wholly out of employmenr'.
The slave business won the day and Parliament merely passed an Act aimed at improving conditions on slave ships by limiting the numbers carried. The Bristol Corporation ordered church bells across the city to be rung in celebration.
The Society of Merchant Venturers fought against abolition to the last, even though Bristol’s share of the trade was insignificant by the end of the 18th Century. - The merchants could make handsome profits by trading directly with the plantation owners, many of whom were from the city, rather than undertaking the far more risky triangular voyages.
The abolition movement suffered a setback in 1793 when Britain went to war with France. - The slave trade was seen as the nursery of seamen’ and abolition of the trade was postponed. - Eventually, in 1807.the slave trade in the British colonies was abolished and it became illegal to carry slaves on British ships.
1745 - The original glass-roofed St Nicholas Market is built
1749 - John Wesley’s brother Charles, the greatest ever hymn writer, moves to Bristol and lives in a house at 4 Charles Street. opposite the present site of the bus station.
1750 - Population of Bristol about 50,000: the city has doubled in size in just 50 years.
1752 - The poet Thomas Chatterton is born into an impoverished Bristol family in Redcliffe.
1753 - Very bad harvests in 1752 are the cause of food riots in 1753. Despite shortages, Bristol merchants are still exporting grain for huge profits. On May 21,
1753 - Kingswood miners lead a march into the city and ransack a ship. the Lamb. that was preparing to sail with 70 tons of wheat to Dublin. On May 25. a crowd of 900, made up of colliers and weavers, break into the Bridewell and release prisoners. Four rioters are killed, around 50 injured and 30 are captured.
1766 - The Theatre Royal is opened.
1774 - The Poet Laureate Robert Southey is born the son of a linen draper at 9 Wine Street on August 12.
1780 - The development of Upper Clifton begins.
1786 - Tobacco company WD & HO Wills is founded by Henry Overton Wills when he moves from Salisbury to Bristol and goes into partnership with Samuel Watkins.Their first shop is in Castle Street but by 1791 the firm has moved to 112 Redcliffe Street.
1799 - Humphry Davy administers nitrous oxide to visitors to the Pneumatic Institute in Dowry Square, Hotwells. After watching the effects on people who inhale it. Davy coins the term ‘laughing gas’.
1800 - Humphry Davy works with Thomas Beddoes at his clinic in Dowry Square, Hotwells. Davy publishes the book Reseorches, Chemical and Philosophical: Chiefly Concerning Nitrous Oxide in which he describes inhaling nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and obtaining a degree of analgesia from a painful condition he was suffering.
Davy’s research into anaesthetic effect are not tested and utilised for another 45 years; instead, the primary use of nitrous oxide is for recreational enjoyment and public shows. So-called ‘nitrous oxide capers’ took place in travelling medicine shows and carnivals, where the public paid a small price to inhale a minute’s worth of gas.
Many dignitaries and famous individuals come to inhale Davy’s purified nitrous oxide for recreational purposes, including the poets Coleridge and Southey, the potter Josiah (later Sir Josiah) Wedgwood, and Roget of Roget’s Thesaurus.'l am sure the air in heaven must be this wonder working gas of delight,' wrote Southey after a swift inhalation in Dowry Square.
