Abstract
This chapter explores the nature of catering in the City before the advent of the mass market. John Pearce’s transformation from a penny capitalist operating a coffee stall in Hoxton (London) for thirteen years to a caterer running a depot in the City on Aldersgate Street structures this chapter.
This revisionist chapter offers the thesis that Pearce, long before Lyons opened teashops in the 1890s, pioneered founding branches of coffee stalls in the 1870s. Later, Pearce would apply this same concept to his chain of depots in which his company sold the products it produced, not just coffee but bread. Critical to understanding these changes was the arrival of the mass market, its origins a major theme of this chapter.
Diverse traits contributed to John Pearce’s success and fashioned his character: marketing skills, Evangelical religion, advertising, business acumen, innovation, showmanship and class consciousness. Pearce also owed his success to business colleagues, who sometimes shared his temperance sentiments or to kindred spirits who wanted to assist the impoverished for philanthropic reasons. He was thus an extraordinary individual whose complex personality diverse influences had shaped.
For Pearce, the impact of his early formative experiences evolved as he aged into enduring personality traits. He held firm to his upbringing, always an unrepentantly humble, modest man who remained faithful to his working-class origins. Nor did his respectful, grateful customers ever forget this. Even when he went up-market in catering to the middle classes, he never lost his social compass.
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Notes
- 1.
Coffee Public-House News, 1 Apr. 1885; Financial Times, 10 Aug. 1906, and 21 Aug. 1922; Temperance Caterer, 15 Jan. 1909.
- 2.
George R. Sims, “Looking Back,” Daily Mail, 5 Oct. 1921; S.J. Adair Fitz-Gerald, “Chats with Caterers: Interview with Joseph Lyons,” Caterer & Hotel-Keepers’ Gazette, 15 June 1904; Financial Times, 10 Aug. 1906; S.J. Adair Fitz-Gerald, “Chats with Caterers: Old Chop Shops: Interview with John Pearce,” Caterer & Hotel-Keepers’ Gazette, 16 Jan. 1905; Financial Times, 21 Aug. 1922.
- 3.
London Daily News, 18 Oct. 1911; Clement Scott, How They Dined Us in 1860 and How They Dined Us Now (London: Trocadero Restaurant, 1900), pp. 8, 19; Sims, “Looking Back”; Adair Fitz-Gerald, “Interview with Joseph Lyons.”
- 4.
Temperance Caterer, 28 Apr. 1888; London Daily News, 18 Oct. 1911.
- 5.
Coffee Public-House News, 1 Apr. 1885; Financial Times, 10 Aug. 1906; Temperance Caterer, 15 Jan. 1909; Adair Fitz-Gerald, “Interview with John Pearce”; Financial Times, 21 Aug. 1922.
- 6.
[Interview with John Pearce], “ABC Jubilee,” Temperance Caterer, 15 Nov. 1912; John Burnett, England Eats Out: A Social History of Eating Out in England from 1830 to the Present (London: Pearson Longman, 2004), p. 109.
- 7.
Scott, How They Dined Us, pp. 8, 19; Sims, “Looking Back”; Adair Fitz-Gerald, “Interview with Joseph Lyons.” Such social distinctions persisted, at least insofar as drinking in pubs and beerhouses was concerned, into the 1930s (David W. Gutzke, “Gender, Class and Public Drinking in Britain During the First World War,” Histoire sociale/Social History 27 (1994): 388).
- 8.
James E. Ellis, Pluck, Patience and Power: The Life of John Pearce of “Pearce and Plenty” (London: H.R. Allenson, 1910), pp. 16, 20–2, 36; Bernard Gainer, The Alien Invasion: The Origins of the Aliens Act of 1905 (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1972), pp. 19–20, 22, 25.
- 9.
Ellis, Pluck, p. 21.
- 10.
See pp. 112–13, 186–87.
- 11.
Ellis, Pluck, pp. 44, 53; Temperance Caterer, 15 Aug. 1895; Kathleen Heasman, Evangelicals in Action: An Appraisal of Their Social Work in the Victorian Era (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1962), p. 142.
- 12.
Ellis, Pluck, pp. 44, 47–8, 50.
- 13.
Temperance Caterer, 15 Aug. 1895.
- 14.
Ellis, Pluck, p. 44. Here Pearce was probably speaking generally about his extensive charitable work.
- 15.
Harold Bolce, “Foreseeing What the People Want: How Initiative, Imagination and a Sense of Value Created an Industry from an Idea,” System 26 (1914): 154.
- 16.
Evidence of the Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, 36 (Cmnd. 8694), p. 241; Robert Thorne, “Places of Refreshment in the Nineteenth-Century City,” in Anthony D. King (ed.) Buildings and Society: Essays on the Social Development of the Built Environment (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 244.
- 17.
Daily Telegraph, 3 Apr. 1901; Bolce, “Foreseeing What the People Want,” p. 156. Also see pp. 70–2.
- 18.
Bolce, “Foreseeing What the People Want,” pp. 155–56.
- 19.
John Pearce, “‘I Started Gutter Hotels’: Founder of the Famous Poor Man’s Restaurants,” Pearson’s Weekly, 5 Sept. 1914.
- 20.
John Pearce, “A Fortune from a Coffee Stall: The Romance of ‘Pearce and Plenty,’” Fortunes Made in Business: Life Struggles of Successful People (London: Harmsworth Brothers, 1901), p. 42; Marguerite Williams, John Pearce : The Man who Played the Game (London: Religious Tract Society, 1928), p. 169; Ellis, Pluck, p. 80. Unprepared to emulate Pearce’s role as the daily coffee-stall keeper, his successor quickly lost business and closed down. ([Interview with John Pearce], “ABC Jubilee,” Temperance Chronicle, 15 Nov. 1912).
- 21.
Ellis, Pluck, pp. 74–9.
- 22.
Daily Telegraph, 27 March 1905.
- 23.
“Coffee-Stall Crisis,” Daily Telegraph, 3 Apr. 1901; [Interview with John Pearce], “ABC Jubilee.”
- 24.
Coffee Public-House News, 1 May 1883; Ellis, Pluck, pp. 80–1.
- 25.
J.B. Brown, “The Pig or the Stye: Drink and Poverty in Late Victorian England,” International Review of Social History 18 (1973): 380–95.
- 26.
J.R. Wintle, “Round the London Restaurants,” Windsor Magazine 4 (1896): 448; Bolce, “Foreseeing What the People Want,” pp. 157–58.
- 27.
“Mr. John Pearce: The Man and His Work,” British Journal of Catering, 15 July 1889; [Interview with John Pearce], “Fifty Years of Catering,” Daily News, 18 Oct. 1911.
- 28.
His second biographer devoted a short paragraph to her rising at 4 a.m., cutting bread, and spreading butter, jam or marmalade on the slices.
- 29.
For a discussion of the masculine republic, see David W. Gutzke, Women Drinking Out in Britain since the Early Twentieth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014), p. 17.
- 30.
Contemporaries later misdated his entry into catering and misunderstood its outcome (Letter to Editor, Temperance Caterer, 15 Dec. 1912).
- 31.
[Interview with John Pearce], “Fifty Years of Catering.”
- 32.
“Pearce ’s Coffee Bar, Farringdon Street, London,” Coffee Public-House News, 1 Feb. 1883.
- 33.
The prices were soon raised by 1d. (City Press, reproduced in Coffee Public-House News, 1 Nov. 1884).
- 34.
Pearce , “‘Gutter Hotels.’”
- 35.
“Pearce ’s Coffee Bars, Farringdon St., London,” Coffee Public-House News, 1 Feb. 1883; Williams, Pearce , p. 95.
- 36.
[Interview with John Pearce], “Fifty Years of Catering”; also see Williams, Pearce , p. 90.
- 37.
Ellis, Pluck, pp. 92–3.
- 38.
Peter Bird, The First Food Empire: A History of J. Lyons & Co. (Chichester: Phillimore & Co., 2000), pp. 38–9, 42; Daily Telegraph, 27 March 1905.
- 39.
Burnett, England Eats Out, pp. 117, 122.
- 40.
See pp. 56 (Table 3.2), 57 and 59.
- 41.
Evidence on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, p. 241; Temperance Caterer, 15 March 1902; Pearce, “Fortune from a Coffee Stall,” p. 42; Bolce, “Foreseeing What the People Want,” p. 158; “Pearce’s Coffee Bars.”
- 42.
“Pearce ’s Coffee Bars”; Ellis, Pluck, p. 94.
- 43.
This had the attendant advantage of avoiding waiters whom customers would be obliged to tip, thereby making meals costlier.
- 44.
Evidence on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, p. 242; Williams, Pearce , pp. 99–100; Bolce, “Foreseeing What the People Want,” p. 158.
- 45.
Williams, Pearce , pp. 99–100, 160; Ellis, Pluck, p. 95; Straits Times, 29 Apr. 1930.
- 46.
Edward Callow, “City Taverns, Chop and Coffee Houses, & Co.,” City Press, reprinted in the Temperance Caterer, 15 Jan. 1898.
- 47.
Refreshment News, 12 May 1888 and 16 Aug. 1890; “Pearce’s Coffee Bars”; Ellis, Pluck, p. 92.
- 48.
Where Pearce obtained the insight or motivation for this departure remains a mystery.
- 49.
Evidence on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, pp. 241–44; Ellis, Pluck, pp. 93–5; Straits Times, 29 April 1930. By 1914, the hotel was selling 12,000 meat puddings daily (Bolce, “Foreseeing What the People Want,” p. 158).
- 50.
Pearce , “Fortune from a Coffee Stall,” p. 42; Bolce, “Foreseeing What the People Want,” p. 158; Williams, Pearce , pp. 103–04, 120, 160; Ellis, Pluck, p. 93; Straits Times, 29 Apr. 1930.
- 51.
Williams, Pearce , pp. 116–20; Ellis, Pluck, p. 96.
- 52.
Wintle, “London Restaurants,” p. 448; Financial Times, 26 Aug. 1926; Ellis, Pluck, p. 143.
- 53.
Evidence on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, p. 244.
- 54.
See pp. 112–13.
- 55.
Not all of this meagre return, moreover, went to investors; some had to cover the hefty annual rent of £1025. Pearce, “Gutter Hotels.”
- 56.
“Pearce ’s Coffee Bars”; Clayton, London’s Coffee Houses, p. 136; Ellis, Pluck, p. 131.
- 57.
Temperance Caterer, 9 Nov. 1889; Evidence on Liquor Licensing Law, 1897, p. 242; Coffee Tavern Gazette, 8 Jan. 1887.
- 58.
Coffee Public-House News, 1 May 1883.
- 59.
The south end of Farringdon Street is the east end of Fleet Street with all the printing work of the period.
- 60.
Williams, Pearce , pp. 97–8; Ellis, Pluck, p. 94; Bolce, “Foreseeing What the People Want,” p. 159; “Pearce’s Coffee Bars”; Clayton, London’s Coffee Houses, p. 136.
- 61.
London Correspondent, “Bar and Dining Room to Editor,” Western Morning News, 24 Sept. 1883.
- 62.
Coffee Public-House News, 1 Oct. 1883.
- 63.
Evidence on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, pp. 240–44; David W. Gutzke, Pubs and Progressives: Reinventing the Public House in England, 1896–1960 (Dekalb, IL: University of Northern Illinois Press, 2006), pp. 97–8.
- 64.
Evidence on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, pp. 241, 244; Williams, Pearce , p. 165.
- 65.
James R. McIntosh, “Alcoholism,” in Jack S. Blocker, Jr., David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrrell (eds.), Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2003), 1: 32.
- 66.
Evidence on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, pp. 241, 244.
- 67.
Brown, “Poverty in Late Victorian England,” pp. 380–95; Harrison, Drink, 1st ed., pp. 357–58.
- 68.
Williams, Pearce , pp. 77–8; Ellis, Pluck, pp. 44, 53.
- 69.
Ellis, Pluck, pp. 30–1, 45–7, 50; Williams, Pearce , p. 163; Evidence on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, p. 244; Temperance Caterer, 15 Aug. 1895.
- 70.
Pearce , “Gutter Hotels.”
- 71.
“Representative Temperance Caterers: John Pearce,” Temperance Caterer, 30 July 1887.
- 72.
Bolce, “Foreseeing What the People Want,” p. 156.
- 73.
See pp. 41–3, 46, 48.
- 74.
Temperance Caterer, 15 June 1894; Williams, Pearce , p. 172. For further discussion of this point, see p. 92.
- 75.
“Pearce ’s Coffee Bars.”
- 76.
Williams, Pearce , p. 90.
- 77.
Ibid. , pp. 90, 163–64; Evidence on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, p. 240; John Nelson Tarn, Five Per Cent Philanthropy: An Account of Housing in Urban Areas between 1840 and 1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 43, 46; Harrison, Drink, 1st ed., pp. 297–98.
- 78.
Financial Times, 10 Aug. 1906.
- 79.
Coffee Public-House News, 1 Sept. 1885.
- 80.
Williams, Pearce , pp. 116–20.
- 81.
Ibid., pp. 116–19.
- 82.
Ibid., pp. 120–21.
- 83.
This meant it was registered as a joint stock company, but had no stock exchange quotation (Evidence on Liquor Licensing Laws, 1897, p. 244).
- 84.
Ellis, Pluck, p. 190; Times, 13 May 1905.
- 85.
Ellis, Pluck, p. 130.
- 86.
In lieu of balance sheets or annual reports, the new company’s prosperity must be inferred from the sole figure for the one dividend and these quotations. Daily Telegraph, 25 Feb. 1927; “Caterers for the Common People,” p. 523; Burnett, England Eating Out, p. 118; Wintle, “London Restaurants,” p. 447; Williams, Pearce , pp. 116, 121, 129, 148; Ellis, Pluck, pp.129–30, 190; Temperance Chronicle, 30 Apr. and 30 July 1887.
- 87.
See, p. 114. Edward C. Guinness, Ist Baron Iveagh (Arthur Guinness, Son & Co.). (David W. Gutzke, “Rhetoric and Reality: The Political Influence of British Brewers, 1832–1914,” Parliamentary History 9 (1990): Appendix 4).
- 88.
Williams, Pearce , p. 15.
- 89.
Temperance Caterer, 15 June 1894.
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Gutzke, D.W. (2019). From Penny Capitalist to Server of the Multitudes. In: John Pearce and the Rise of the Mass Food Market in London, 1870–1930. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27095-7_4
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