Coffee Tavern

 This week I am doing another building taken from the Industrial Archaeology of South East London.  If I am quite honest I am far from sure this was an industrial site – but SELIA has listed it and it is an interesting building, in Woolwich, and so I’ve included it.  It is the ‘coffee tavern’ which ended its days as a bingo hall in Woolwich New Road. So what did SELIA say about it? “Woolwich New Rd, SE18. The Chinese restaurant at the corner of Vincent Road bears a foundation stone marked ‘Woolwich and Plumstead Coffee Tavern Co Ld. 30/10/ 1818.’ It was opened at the Royal Connaught Assembly Rooms but by 1906 had become Smith’s Empire Variety Theatre. Shortly afterwards it became the first cinema in Woolwich and remained as that until the 1930s.’  

I am more than a bit embarrassed never to have noticed this building before it was demolished in 1986. I was in Woolwich as a student through much of the 1970s and I can’t say I took it in. By then it had been converted to shops, a restaurant and some sort of bingo hall - but early pictures of it show a magnificent building.  

Coffee Taverns and similar organisations were part of the massive temperance movement in the late 19th century.  People were asked to ‘sign the pledge’ and not drink alcohol  At its height it included many different types of organisation from the most basic neighbourhood groups to huge national organisations which together made up an enormous bloc  with huge rallies and great lobbying power.   At one level, and certainly in the suburbs of south London, its message was to the working man to give up drink so he could take control of his life to; become aspirational and work with others to change things. It is closely related to other organisations for and by working s people including the Co-op and the growing trade union movement.  A call to ordinary people to take their futures into their own hands.   The ideas behind the Coffee Taverns was for places of refreshment for working men where they could eat and socialise without the necessity of alcohol - where the community of the public bar could be replicated but in sobriety.  They would be relatively humble establishments.

By 1881 there were certainly several other ‘coffee taverns’ in the area.  There at was at least one in Woolwich – in Green’s End. There was another in Blackwall Lane in a parade of shops near where the gas holder used to stand. In their simplest form they would be in an unpretentious building, where working men could sometimes bring their own food, selling nutritious soup and similar cheap dishes. 

However the Woolwich Coffee Tavern seems to been very much more aspirational than any of these - it was certainly not a simple unpretentious café as it referred to itself as a ‘Coffee Palace'.  It was set up by a group of local grandees in Woolwich headed by Mr John Robert Jolly and had 1,300 shareholders.  Jolly was a local man who, having retired from a job at the War Office, had taken on numerous public roles - as a JP, as a member of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and later the London County Council and many other local causes. The Hon Secretary was James de Havilland, a Blackheath resident and a Major General in the Royal Artillery.  The actual secretary was Frederick Johnson, another local man with an interest in many local causes.

A public meeting was held at Woolwich Town Hall at the end of July 1879, chaired by the Governor of the Royal Military Academy.  At this meeting an announcement was made on proposals for a ‘Coffee Palace’ which would be like similar projects which had enjoyed “such remarkable success  ... In large centres of population throughout the United Kingdom” which might be a hint that Woolwich aspired to equal Manchester. Lack of attendance at the meeting was blamed on overtime at the Arsenal itself but there was a full platform of local dignitaries and some others in the audience. They were showed the architect's drawings. They discussed possible sites and said that while the main object was supporting temperance they would build   ‘a palace -well-placed, well finished and lighted and hope it exercises the power to do well.’ 

There appears to have been a delay in setting the opening date. This was reported on by the Kentish Independent which was only too happy to contradict those rumours by giving many details of what they were all about. They were also the subject of letters to the press “from the Secretary of the Coffee Palace Company and a belligerent communication from the architect”. The architect was William Rickwood, a local man who had undertaken various architectural projects in the Arsenal and elsewhere.  It had been said that the ‘Palace’ would be opened by the Earl of Derby, a recent Foreign Secretary.  However it was eventually opened by the Duke of Connaught and was named after him. The Duke, Arthur, was Queen Victoria’s  seventh child but had been a Woolwich resident and trained as a cadet at the Royal Military Academy,  holding commissions in both the Royal Engineers and then Royal Artillery .He was a leading Freemason and a patron of various  temperance organisations   

It opening was on 30 October 1880 to the strains of the Royal Arsenal Philharmonic Society under the bandmaster of the Rifle Brigade.  It was said in ‘the largest and most comprehensive of its kind in the kingdom  …. which occupies a commanding site close to the Arsenal Station of the North Kent railway and … has a handsome elevation with an angled turret and spire”

 It was certainly ambitious. It had four floors - the basement being a clubroom with kitchen;  the ground floor was the Coffee Tavern itself,  the first floor had the  boardroom and some bedrooms and on the top floor was a public hall with a gallery which – it was said -would accommodate a thousand people!!  Pictures show it to  be imposing and magnificent.

 Advertisements for early entertainments held there are also ambitious to say the least. There was, for instance,  a concert featuring singers from the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral. There were also talks and meetings on serious subjects and much of what is advertised there seems to be ‘improving’ rather than immediately popular.  In October 1881 there is a strange press report that the managers and employees in the building had mutinied and turned the directors and officers out by force, and thus taken possession. The report says fresh staff would be employed but does not explain at all. Over the first few years there are many advertisements for staff – one for instance wants  a ‘respectable under house maid, must be bright with an obliging manner’ another later for ‘a respectable active housemaid’.  

It didn’t last of course. In 1892 it the hall was converted into a music hall which lasted until 1902. In 1903 the Duke of Connaught Coffee Tavern was advertised ‘with new proprietorship’ with ‘first-class coffee’ and ‘clean beds’. They advertised dinners and teas and in particular breakfast with kippers and toast and much else. There are reports of draughts matches and dancing school displays.  Hopefully they had lost any reputation for dirty beds and lazy, disreputable housemaids.

The building went through a number of changes with the hall first used as a cinema in September 1900 when the Royal Animated Picture Company showed a twice nightly programme of films.  From 1908 it was the Palace Picture Theatre featuring a ‘ladies band’ as an extra.  There were many similar uses over the years until in the 1950s and 1960s the hall was a ballroom over a restaurant and shops. In 1952 it was the Ritz Ballroom and in 1953 it was the Star Ballroom with a personal appearance by popstar Eden Kane.  I have tried to find advertisements for some of these events with little success. One publicity attempt comes from 1953 when the cinema then in occupation organised a dance contest. They released balloons and issued leaflets. One of the usherettes paraded the town ‘with a pram on which a suitably worded card had been fixed’. Another poster was fixed to a bus stop which the manager estimated was used by 4,000 people each rush hour. By 1969 the hall had become a roller skating rink and later a bingo hall and social club.

In the 1960s there were various development proposals for Woolwich Town Centre which ended with the Council setting up General Gordon Square - originally a compromise. The next scheme was for the area in which the ex-Coffee Tavern was standing. So, it was demolished in 1983 following a campaign for re-tention by “Save Woolwich Now!!”

I wonder what has happened to the foundation stone.  The late Jack Vaughan (first Chair of GIHS) said that it had been taken into the care of the Council to be used in a future building and was stored at White Hart Depot.  Greenwich Industrial History Society visited the depot in 2000 and noted there was no sign of it. Questions were but there was no reply. Jack said that he believed it was still there but White Hart Depot has since been completely cleared and used by Crossrail. It is now back with the Council and in other use. Does anybody know where this foundation stone is? Was it moved? Was it at White Hart and if so where was it taken? Does the ex-Borough Museum have it? I’m sure someone will get back onto me as soon as they see this article.