The original Coffee House
Fraser Nelson 9:33am
Some people ask why we call this blog Coffee House. The principal reason is that this magazine’s founders, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, went around such places picking up gossip and scandal – coffee houses were the 18th century equivalent of blogs, hated by the establishment for irreverence. Reports from the coffee houses filled the 1711 incarnation of the publication you are now reading online. The Times today quotes Charles II describing them in 1675 as “places where the disaffected met and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers.” Our job remit precisely.
PS The first 1711 edition was printed every day, on a single piece of newspaper. In the first edition, Addison introduced himself and the places he spied on. “I appear on Sunday nights at St James Coffee House and sometimes join the little Committee of Politicks in the Inner Room” to hear what was going on. And your loyal correspondents do the best to hang out the modern day equivalents of such places, and report back – online, or in the magazine.
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Comments
HalcyonDays
February 23rd, 2008 10:49am"This magazine's founders". I must admit I always thought that the Addison and Steele Spectator had little or no connection with the current Spectactor magazine, which was founded over 100 years later. The Addison and Steele Spectator was certainly influential at the time but lasted only a short while, a matter of a few years.
Fraser Nelson
February 23rd, 2008 2:23pmHalycon, it's true the magazine had the habit of taking rather long lunch breaks. The first series ran from Mar 1711 to Dec1712. Then Jun to Dec 1714. Then 1729-39, with other bursts. And in those days, old copy was constantly being republished - so compendiums would appear between those dates. Benjamin Franklin would publish pieces 50 years on. you're right that our current magazine dates back to 1828. But each incarnation (including, I like to think. CoffeeHouse blog) is true to the original mission of Addison & Steele.
Herbert Thornton
February 23rd, 2008 8:13pm"“....places where the disaffected met and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers.” Our job remit precisely. "
Um, yes, to some extent. But if it were really true, wouldn't you solicit at least the occasional piece written by, say, Nick Griffin?
Fraser Nelson
February 24th, 2008 9:05amHerbert, loathe the BNP as I do it's also true that we have never run a piece from any politican. The point about Coffee Houses in the 1700s was not who speaks in them, but who stops by them. Steele's full quote that we excerpt at the top of each page goes... "It is very natural for a man to delight in that sort of Conversation which we fund in Coffee-houses. Here, a man of my Temper is in his Element. For if he cannot talk, he can still be more aggreeable to is Company as well as pleased in himself, im being only a Hearer."
TGF UKIP
February 24th, 2008 1:11pmI bet the 1711 Spectator wasn't as policed and censored as Coffee House is in 2008.
asquith
February 24th, 2008 4:35pm"The first series ran from Mar 1711 to Dec1712. Then Jun to Dec 1714. Then 1729-39, with other bursts". Is that when Bruce Anderson started his career?
Herbert Thornton
February 24th, 2008 6:57pmFraser, your point about never running a piece from any politician makes me curious, especially since I notice that this has appeared in the Coffee House -
"Wednesday, 13th February 2008
Hold Brown to account
Boris Johnson 11:22am"
I should have thought that Boris was very much a politician.
On what basis do you distinguish between politicians like Boris and other politicians?
Fraser Nelson
February 26th, 2008 10:01amHerbert, you're right and I was wrong. Boris is indeed a politician who has blogged here - but as our former editor has rather special status. Anyway, may well run blogs by other politicians in the future, if we reckon they'd go down well (a condition which excludes Griffin). And TGF, the 1711 Coffee Houses were by and large Whiggish hangouts. The view then was that loyal Englishmen didnt do coffee but drank ale and said toasts, where CoffeeHouse was for discontents. So it was v politicised.
Herbert Thornton
February 26th, 2008 7:08pmFraser, I guessed that Boris had a special status, which I'm glad to hear because I enjoy reading him.
But I am still curious, especially when you say that you may well run blogs by other politicians in the future - if you reckon they'd "go down well". If that test is going to be applied to material, isn't the result going to be a rather sanitised version of the Coffee House - one that actually excludes both the really "disaffected" and the most "scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers"? I should have thought that the terrible Mr. Griffin would be a rather conspicuous example & source of such things.