Refreshing changes?

01 January 2000
Refreshing changes?

This is going to be a long journey, with some big gaps between most of the steps at first, so we'd better start with a drink. Fancy an ale? It's an ancient brew made with malted barley - this is the middle of the 10th century so there will be no hops in sight for about five centuries yet. If you prefer it, the Romans have showed us how to make wine.

Drink is important, being the butler's responsibility, and he (or, to begin with, she) is one of the most senior servants in a royal household. The will of King Eadred, in the middle of the 10th century, shows that the seneschals, chamberlains and butlers were the high court officials of the time, coming between the bishops and the priests in status.

Little is known about organised catering at the time of the Norman Conquest, and the Domesday Book doesn't deal with inns, taverns or alehouses, being mainly an inventory of agricultural holdings.

The so-called Bayeux Tapestry, which was actually made by nuns in Canterbury, seems to show Norman soldiers loading food for the troops onto their ships before leaving France, but there is no evidence they had anything remotely like the Army Catering Corps of the 20th century.

In the 13th century the alehouse becomes established as a permanent commercial operation - perhaps the precursor to the modern pub - rather than being simply the back room of an alewife's private house. Numbers of alehouses grow with population and new settlements. But it's a poor living, often combined with other trades - the alehouse keeper may also be a baker or fishmonger. It's a hard life, too - shopping for victuals at 6am, going to the malt market at 11am and then serving ale from midday to 9pm. Brewing would often be done at night.

This is also a time of development for the tavern, the precursor to today's licensed restaurant. Taverns serve wine and food and are a haven for the discerning townsfolk, while the alehouse provides a drink for the farm labourer. In 1272 London has three taverns: at Chepe, Walbrooke and Lombard Street; by 1309, this number has swelled to 354. Taverns serve mainly wine, as distinct from the alehouse, while inns serve meals and may offer a bed for the night, but their main purpose is to provide fresh horses for stage coaches - stabling is more important than bedrooms.

The alestake (a broom sticking out of the eaves of an alehouse) must be displayed each time the alewife makes a new brew, signalling to the local ale-connor that it's time for him to make his inspection. Is this the beginning of tested standards in hospitality?

Customers' behaviour is already a problem. "The golden age of the tavern was in the 16th and 17th centuries, However, as early as 1329, their numbers were starting to cause alarm: ‘Whereas misdoers, going about by night, have their resort more in taverns than elsewhere, and there seek refuge and watch their hour for misdoing, we forbid that any taverner or brewer keep the door of his tavern open after the hour of curfew'." [1]

In the mid-14th century, staff catering is established in country manor houses, where the lord is responsible for feeding household and agricultural workers.

The age of the Tudors, beginning with the ascension of Henry VII in 1485, is a time of elegance and wit, reflected in both the music and the literature of the time and in the grandeur of entertainment at the country houses of Britain.

Cowdray, the Sussex house of Lord Montague, provides a setting: "Socially, the period from about 1500 to the Commonwealth, and more particularly during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, was one of luxury and ceremonial magnificence, the service of a great lord's house, as set forth in Lord Montague's regulations for his household at Cowdray in 1595, being an ornate ritual. So far was the dignity of the nobleman upheld at Cowdray that not only was the table laid for dinner with an elaborate ceremonial of bows and reverences, but while the joints were cooking in the kitchen no-one might stand with his back irreverently turned towards them. Small wonder that Edward VI complained of excessive banqueting at Cowdray!" [2]

In 1557 John Shakespeare, father of William, the actor/playwright, is appointed ale-conner of Stratford-upon-Avon. William no doubt takes an interest in his father's job, as well as drinking with his fellow actors, and he commemorates two watering holes in his plays. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, John Falstaff meets Mistress Quickly at the Garter Inn in Windsor, after his ducking in the Thames, and begs her "let me pour in some sack to the Thames water". In Henry IV Part 1, Shakespeare takes us to the Boar's Head tavern in London's Eastcheap. Mrs Quickly, who in the earlier play was servant to the French physician, Dr Caius, is now promoted to hostess of the Boar's Head, and has a vintner working with her. There, Prince Henry berates Falstaff for spending, at the same meal, 5s 8d on sack and only a ha'penny on bread.

Expanding role

By 1600 taverns have developed into something more like a modern pub, many of them with an alehouse in the basement. And the innkeeper's role is expanding, as shown in a little book tracing the history of the Mermaid Inn at Windsor. In 1656, George Pennington, landlord of the Mermaid, mints an issue of ha'penny tokens. The obverse shows a mermaid holding a mirror, and bears Pennington's name. Small change is nationally in very short supply and many shopkeepers and innkeepers issue such tokens. [3]

The Boar's Head tavern in which Mrs Quickly and John Falstaff so provoked each other is lost, along with many other hostelries, in the Great Fire of 1666. But a new tavern of the same name appears in 1668, on the same site in Eastcheap. One historian tells of a business pub lunch there that went wrong. The date is May 1718: "One James Austin, inventor of the Persian ink powder, desiring to give his customers a substantial proof of his gratitude, invited them to the Boar's Head to partake of an immense plum-pudding - this pudding weighed 1,000 pounds - a baked pudding of one foot square, and the best piece of an ox roasted." [4] The principal dish was so large it had to be prepared at the nearby Red Lion, which had a large enough copper. After 14 days of boiling, it was to be transported with great pomp and fanfare to the Boar's Head, but the aroma overpowered the inhibitions of the local populace, who devoured the whole thing en route.

Dr Samuel Johnson made a famous tribute to taverns. On 22 March 1776, James Boswell reports that he and Dr Johnson "dined at an excellent inn at Chapel-house, where he expatiated on the felicity of England in its taverns and inns, and triumphed over the French for not having, in any perfection, the tavern life". Boswell records Johnson as saying: "There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well, as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so great plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that every body should be easy, in the nature of things it cannot be: there must always be some degree of care and anxiety." [5]

Gross and indecent

In the 19th century, music hall, which we now see recreated in the seaside theatre or television studio, starts life in Britain's pubs - and some see it as a scandal. For example, here's an 1838 report from Bradford: "The licensee of the Bermondsey Hotel instituted the public-house music room system, which spread widely and prospered greatly for very many years, becoming, however, so conspicuously gross and indecent that it had to be severely handled by the authorities." [6]

Laying on musical entertainment also allows the licensee to charge for admission to that part of the pub, or to bump up the prices for food and drink.

The early 19th century seems to be when hotels, modelled on either the French chateau or the Georgian town house, appear in a form distinct from the old coaching inns. The first hotel chains start to emerge in the second half of the century: the first railway hotels are developed, with a big emphasis on catering, and Frederick Gordon builds up Gordon Hotels. However, Gordon's is a voice in the wilderness, he being one of the first to recognise that bedroom occupancy is the key to profits.

In the early days of the railways, the railway companies are irked by hawkers who bring onto the platforms baskets of meat pies, Eccles cakes, bottles of pop and other refreshment - but they fail until May 1838 to offer an alternative. Then the London and Birmingham Railway opens the first railway refreshment rooms at the new station at Birmingham Curzon Street. It is licensed to Mr Dee, owner of Dee's Royal hotel, in Temple Row, Birmingham - and the city's innkeepers protest at unfair competition.

In September 1839 the Victoria hotel - actually a third-class dormitory and breakfast rooms - opens at London Euston. Developed by a subsidiary of the London and Birmingham Railway, this is the first railway-owned hotel to open in Britain. The licensee is one Robert Bacon, former steward of the Athenaeum club. Three months later, the same developer opens the Euston hotel, opposite, for first-class travellers.

Cuff's Station hotel opens in Derby in 1841, designed by Francis Thompson in the same style as his railway station across the road. In 1862, the Midland Railway buys this property, renames it the Midland and, two years later, takes on a local 15-year-old called William Towle. This lad so impresses the Midland Railway's top brass that by 1871 he is manager of the hotel, and by 1892 he is general manager of all Midland's hotels, dining cars and refreshment rooms.

In 1873, the Midland Grand St Pancras opens, though it's not fully completed for another four years. Designed by George Gilbert Scott, it costs £400,000 (£50,000 more than the specification laid down in the rules for the architecture competition). It has 400 bedrooms, the smaller ones on the upper floors intended for servants who travel with their first-class passenger employers. Guests wanting a bath in the morning must summon a maid, who will bring jugs of hot water to fill the tin tub stored under the bed.

Towle is responsible for the development of the Midland, Manchester (open in 1903), and the relaunch of the Adelphi (complete in 1914).

First dining car

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, in 1868, George Mortimer Pullman launches the world's first dining car on the Chicago and Alton Railroad, and names it Delmonico, after a famous New York restaurant. James Allport, general manager of the Midland Railway, visits Pullman in the USA and is most impressed. In 1873, he signs a 15-year-agreement for Pullman cars to be built in Detroit, shipped to England and assembled at Derby. On 1 November 1879, the first dining car on a British train, the Prince of Wales, goes into service on the 10am from Leeds Central, due into London King's Cross at 2pm, departing northbound at 5.30pm and due back in Leeds at 10.10pm.

In 1875 William Towle starts an on-train lunch basket service. Priced at 3s and 2s, these baskets contain a hot or cold meal and a drink of wine, sherry or beer, and come supplied with china, glass and cutlery. Passengers order lunch when they begin their journey, collect the basket at a station en route and have the empty basket and dirty wares taken away further along the line. Adventurous but impractical, the idea survives until 1941 - the last record of lunch baskets being offered is on the Great Western Railway.

The Victorian age is dominated by the railways and the gradual development of a national network. It takes until after the Second World War to complete, but eventually you can travel around, have breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner and a bed for the night - all from the same business. This is made possible by the Victorians' engineering skill and the growth of the stock market. From the 1880s onward, the development becomes one of technology in a 20th century sense - and industrial catering is born.

This begins when Isidore and Montague Gluckstein and Barnett Salmon launch a company to cater for the Newcastle Exhibition of 1887, and ask Joseph Lyons to be their chairman and lend them his name. Barnett's son Isidore Salmon goes on to lead the company and is one of the giants of the modern industry, being largely responsible for the formation of the Army Catering Corps. Lyons Teashops, meanwhile, become Britain's first branded restaurant chain.

Restaurateur John Gardner wins a contract in 1904 to supply food to Russian ships anchored off Hull during the Russo-Japanese War. Herbert William "Peter" Merchant, a cigar importer, acquires by chance a business which serves tea and buns to building sites - and he develops factory canteens. Employee feeding becomes a feature of industrial relations. Jack Bateman and Jack Sutcliffe form Factory Canteens in 1941, but later go their separate ways.

The shock of the Second World War transforms the industry, especially its restaurants. The Ministry of Food galvanises local authorities and the industry to set up community feeding centres, many of which trade as British Restaurants. Their purpose is to provide emergency meals for people bombed out of their homes or whose power, water or gas supplies have been cut off. People can sit down and eat at these centres, but they are also probably the first modern examples of take-away restaurants - customers bring their own containers and take "cash and carry meals" home in them.

Organised mass catering raises questions about nutrition - and both these elements come together in mass catering for schools and hospitals. Towards the end of the war, a government spokesman suggests that having to use communal feeding centres has made the British public more "restaurant-minded". Certainly, the industrialised approach to catering is rolled out both in contract catering and in the fast food sector.

Still a benchmark

Hotels reach new heights at the end of the Victorian age, and the standards they set are still a benchmark a century later. In 1891, Cezar Ritz appoints Auguste Escoffier head chef at the Savoy, where he establishes the partie system and introduces frogs' legs to London. When he and Ritz are sacked, Escoffier moves to the Ritz in Paris (1898) and then the Carlton in London (1899), staying at the latter for 20 years, revolutionising hotel kitchens and creating the à la carte system.

The Adelphi hotel, Liverpool, originally opened in 1828 as a Georgian house and rebuilt in 1876 in a grander style, with six floors instead of three, is acquired by the Midland Railway Company in 1892. In 1914, it reopens after refurbishment as the New Midland-Adelphi, "which cannot be classified as other than absolutely the highest standard yet attained in hotel construction". [7] The reconstruction and refurbishment are in the style of a French palace - parts of it are direct copies of rooms at Napoleon's palace at Fontainebleau.

The French influence is strong, especially on restaurants, most of which base their menus on the tradition of Careme and Escoffier. That will change with the two wars, which bring servicemen and refugees from dozens of countries to Britain, bringing their restaurant styles with them.

Skyscraper hotels

By the 1920s, New York and Chicago boast skyscraper hotels of more than 1,000 rooms, on more than 20 storeys. Not until the 1960s will a US-style tower hotel, the London Hilton, open in Britain. But the Royal opens near Russell Square in the mid-1920s, with 1,000 rooms, all with hot and cold water.

The days of the retired butler, publican or serviceman walking into a job as a hotel manager are over: universities, first in the USA then in Britain, offer hotel management as a subject of study.

Old and new come together in the country house hotels movement. The rich of the preceding two centuries, who have built country houses in the French chateau style, can no longer support them and many are converted to hotels.

Salesmanship becomes a driving force. For the tourism sector, which expands dramatically alongside air transport, the need for promotion and development is not lost on governments. In 1929, the Travel Association of Great Britain & Ireland is formed - a forebear of the British Tourist Authority (BTA). Francis Towle, son of William Towle of Midland Railway Hotels, is one of the driving forces. Forty years later, when the BTA is finally created, the government gives grants of £1,000 per bedroom to boost hotel development, prompting a rash of red brick and concrete. Critics warn of over-building, and some developments are converted to offices and nursing homes, but most will still be operating as hotels at the end of the century.

We seem by now to have come a long way from the butler, and whatever alehouse he drank in. But his ghost will surely be delighted to see that, here and there, pubs can still be found with a brewery over the shop. Make mine a pint!

Sources

[1] The English Pub - a History, by Peter Haydon; published by Robert Hale, London. ISBN 0-7090-5302-9

[2] Extract from "Social and economic history" in A History of Sussex, Vol 2, in the Victoria County History Series (page 196)

[3] From Tudor Inn to Trusthouse Hotel, by Judith Hunter

[4] "London's taverns in history and London's history in taverns" - a lecture by Harold Griffiths ARIBA, FSI, MRSI, given at an ordinary meeting of the Auctioneers' Institute of the United Kingdom, 9 December 1908

[5] James Boswell, Life of Johnson (vol 2, page 452)

[6] The History of Bradford, by Charles Ogden; published by the Bradford & District Newspaper Co, 1935

[7] The History of a Great Enterprise - souvenir brochure to commemorate the reopening of the Adelphi hotel, Liverpool, as the Midland-Adelphi

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