place

Garraway's Coffee House

17th-century establishments in England17th century in London18th century in LondonCoffeehouses and cafés in the United KingdomFormer buildings and structures in the City of London
London Stock Exchange
Garraway's Coffee House
Garraway's Coffee House

Garraways Coffee House was a London coffee house in Exchange Alley from the period where such houses served as important places where other business was performed. Its original proprietor, Thomas Garway, was already said to be the first person in England to sell tea prior to the house's founding, and when he began to sell it here in 1657 it became the first place in England to do so. The Hudson's Bay Company conducted its first sale of furs at the coffee house in 1671. Different kinds of merchants patronized different coffee houses, with tea merchants patronising Garraway's, as well as many investors in the South Sea Bubble of the 1710s. The establishment became famous as a sandwich and drinking room, it being said that the sandwich-maker spent two hours preparing each day's food.The works of Charles Dickens include multiple references to Garraway's, and Daniel Defoe wrote of it being frequented by wealthy traders from the City.The building was destroyed by fire in 1748, having been open for 216 years.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Garraway's Coffee House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Garraway's Coffee House
Change Alley, City of London

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Garraway's Coffee HouseContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.5129 ° E -0.087 °
placeShow on map

Address

Change Alley

Change Alley
EC3V 9AH City of London
England, United Kingdom
mapOpen on Google Maps

Garraway's Coffee House
Garraway's Coffee House
Share experience

Nearby Places

Lloyd's Coffee House
Lloyd's Coffee House

Lloyd's Coffee House was a significant meeting place in London in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was opened by Edward Lloyd (c. 1648 – 15 February 1713) on Tower Street in 1686. The establishment was a popular place for sailors, merchants and shipowners, and Lloyd catered to them by providing reliable shipping news. The shipping industry community frequented the place to discuss maritime insurance, shipbroking and foreign trade. The dealings that took place led to the establishment of the insurance market Lloyd's of London, Lloyd's Register and several related shipping and insurance businesses.The coffee shop relocated to Lombard Street in December 1691. Lloyd had a pulpit installed in the new premises, from which maritime auction prices and shipping news were announced. Candle auctions were held in the establishment, with lots frequently involving ships and shipping. From 1696–1697 Lloyd also experimented with publishing a newspaper, Lloyd's News, reporting on shipping schedules and insurance agreements reached in the coffee house. In 1713, the year of Edward Lloyd's death, he modified his will to assign the lease of the coffee house to his head waiter, William Newton, who then married one of Lloyd's daughters, Handy. Newton died the following year and Handy subsequently married Samuel Sheppard. She died in 1720 and Sheppard died in 1727, leaving the coffee house to his sister Elizabeth and her husband, Thomas Jemson. Jemson founded the Lloyd's List newspaper in 1734, similar to the previous Lloyd's News. Merchants continued to discuss insurance matters there until 1774, when the participating members of the insurance arrangement formed a committee and moved to the Royal Exchange on Cornhill as the Society of Lloyd's.

City bonds robbery

The City bonds robbery of 1990 was a heist in which £291.9 million (equivalent to £840 million in 2023) was stolen in London, England. The carefully planned operation made it seem at first as if a courier had been mugged on 2 May, yet the City of London Police soon realised that it was a sophisticated global venture which ended up involving participants such as the New York mafia, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Colombian drug barons. The robbery was one of the largest in world history. The robbery took advantage of the existence of couriers who moved vast sums of money around the City of London in order to ensure liquidity in the UK financial system. The money was in the form of certificates of deposit and HM Treasury bills. These bearer bonds were recovered in different places including Glasgow, New York, Miami (on their way to Peru), and Zürich. In a wide-ranging investigation, the police eventually recovered all but two of the 301 certificates, with some of those arrested allegedly turning informant, such as Mark Osborne, who was later found murdered. Patrick Thomas, who allegedly carried out the original theft, was shot dead. Keith Cheeseman, an extravagant fraudster, was arrested in the UK but skipped bail to Tenerife, claiming his life was in danger. He was briefly thought to have been the Bolney Torso and then was located and arrested in Spain. Cheeseman was extradited to the US to stand charges of money laundering and received a six and a half year sentence. John Traynor was arrested for a mortgage fraud using the stolen bonds as collateral; he was sentenced to seven years for handling stolen goods. A year and a half later he absconded from prison; he was arrested in the Netherlands in 2010 and extradited back to the UK to serve the rest of his sentence.