For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.
Scandal at the Café Royal (23.11.12)
The Café Royal is due to re-open soon with much of its original features still intact. If any of its early customers chose to revisit the hotel after nearly 100 years they would immediately recognise it, unfortunately, Regent Street the road it occupies would be unrecognisable to its architect John Nash.
When in 1929 the new Regent Street was proposed the architects had every intention of building a new Café Royal and they were astonished when there was an outcry from across the world at the prospect of the beautiful Café Royal being destroyed. After a long campaign, which included representations from the Royal family, a compromise was reached – the interior of the dining room, with its magnificent decorative scheme, would be carefully removed and then when a room the exact size of the old room had been built in the new Café Royal the old interior would be slotted back into place.
The hotel was originally conceived in 1865 by Daniel Nichole-Thévenon, a bankrupt French wine merchant fleeing his creditors with just £5 in his pocket.
Later the Café Royal would flourish under the ownership of his son and at the time was considered to have the greatest wine cellar in Europe. By the turn of the 20th century, it was the centre of fashionable London, numbering among its guests dining at the hotel’s Grill Room or Empire and Napoleon Suite: Winston Churchill, Graham Greene and Elizabeth Taylor.
Some of the first boxing rules were written down in the hotel by the National Sporting Club, which held black-tie dinners before fights held there. A 1950s boxing ring complete with blood stains was auctioned by Bonhams prior to the hotel’s recent refurbishment.
Over the years the Café Royal has seen its fair share of scandal. In 1894 the night porter was found with two bullets in his head, a murder which was never solved.
The hotel’s most famous scandal arose during a conversation (the last civil one both men should engage with each other) between Oscar Wilde and The Marquess of Queensberry.
The Marquess, who instigated the hotel’s boxing matches, and whose name is associated with the sport’s rules, confronted Oscar Wilde and his friendship with the Marquess’ son.
Wilde, a serious absinthe drinker would enjoy liquid lunches at the Café Royal, and the dining room would set the scene for the early 20th century’s biggest scandal and the eventual demise of its most popular playwright.
The Marquess confronted Wilde about his dalliance with his son, the spoilt neurotic Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas.
For once Oscar Wilde could not charm his way out of his predicament as he had on numerous occasions. The Marquess of Queensbury stormed out to leave a misspelt card at Wilde’s club: ‘For Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite’.
For a playwright of Wilde’s stature, the misspelling must have been almost as serious affront as the accusation.
Wilde held a council of war at the Café Royal with among others George Bernard Shaw who urged him to let the matter drop.
In court, Queensberry could avoid conviction for libel only by demonstrating that his accusation was in fact true and furthermore that there was some ‘public benefit’ to having made the accusation openly. Queensberry’s lawyers hired private detectives to find evidence of Wilde’s homosexual liaisons to prove the fact of the accusation. The libel trial became a cause célèbre as salacious details of Wilde’s private life with blackmailers, male prostitutes, cross-dressers and homosexual brothels appeared in the press.
Wilde would lose the case and be himself arrested at the Cadogan Hotel (you now pay a premium to sleep in the same room); put on trial and served two years hard labour for gross indecency.
He would be released a broken man and never return to writing plays to such critical acclaim.
On 18 January 1936 Rudyard Kipling died in London aged 70. He was at the time the most popular and highest paid writer in the world
Following the Great Fire of London in 1666 French Silversmith, Robert Hulbert, confessed to starting the fire on the Pope’s orders
There are two strange statues on Portman Mansions-a monkey with a long tail and a hunchback-that weren’t on the plans appearing summer 1935
Ben Johnson who died in 1637 was buried standing up in Poets Corner at his own request, “2 feet by 2 feet is all I want”
Prior to his execution at Wandsworth Prison Nazi sympathiser William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) scratched swastikas on his cell wall
1970’s ITV sitcom On The Buses starring Reg Varney was partly filmed at Wood Green bus depot as well as Lavender Hill cemetery
The Japanese Garden in Hammersmith Park is the only remnant of the Japanese British exhibition held at White City in 1910
The longest Rugby drop goal (85yd) was kicked by Gerry Brand for South Africa against England at Twickenham in January 1932
The first person to receive a parking ticket in London was parked on Great Cumberland Place – was a doctor attending a heart attack victim
Cock Lane near St Bart’s Hospital was the only place licensed prostitutes could legally ply their trade in medieval London
The Buckingham Palace corgis have a new menu every day, their culinary delight for the day is typed out and stuck on the kitchen wall
Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
CabbieBlog 