Gunter's Teashop 1780

Anne Negri had asked her nephew James Gunter to join them in the office. While she was waiting for him to arrive, she worried inwardly about the current situation. She and her partner Mrs Witten were getting old and were finding that it was more difficult to keep up with the demands of the business.

Her husband Domenico had gone back to Turin to his family there and was not expected to live long. For some years he had given over the management of the company to the two women and had gradually become less and less interested. Now she was sixty-five years old herself and slowing up after being the driving force for so long.

James, her brother’s son, had come to learn the business and had shown himself interested and good at it. She was not so confident about the abilities of the other James Gunter, the one that she called James Gunter of Bond Street. It was confusing and irritating having two James Gunter who were cousins. Where they were living was the only sure way of making sure which was which in conversation.

James Gunter of Bond Street was now living in Bond Street while learning the business of catering, cooking, making cakes and ice creams. It was a popular street full of fashionable shops and places to live for young men about town. It might be that she should bring him into partnership as well to share the work and the risk, so it was not just James Gunter of Berkeley Square. She must talk to her lawyer about drawing up deeds of partnership together with her will.

James arrived with Mrs Witten from the kitchens next door. Now there were all the commissions to sort out and start preparing. These latest were for supplying confectionery for the balls held by the landed gentry who had town houses. There were so many at this time of year, between Easter and just before those with country estates went out of town in July.

It was hot day at the end of May and James felt it was stifling in this busy noisy place compared to his native Abergavenny. Despite having been in London for several years, he was still not really used to the feeling of being shut in and under a haze of dust and constant noise. For a moment his attention wandered back to 1777 when he first arrived – but he shook himself, he must concentrate. His Aunt Anne was aging and not paying the attention to the detail that had been so vital in building up this successful business.

The office was just off the kitchens where the heat rose from the baking and the refining of the sugar. It was a good thing they had the cool covered area and the outhouses behind the house. There the ice cream could be frozen in the vats filled with ice from ice houses and the moulds for the custards kept cool. He thought with longing of all the buckets filled with ice and salt, holding the metal freezing pots containing the ice cream mixtures. He would relish taking one out right now, shaking it, and scraping the ice from the sides to mix it into the mixture, before replacing it to freeze through. But business demanded that they sort out the demands of the next two weeks.

James felt irritated with the two women who seemed focused on the minutiae of what they should bake and make for each occasion. His Aunt was listing the biscuits, cakes, sugar plums, creams, sweet meats and ices they would prepare for each occasion. James thought Mrs Witten’s hand was getting too unsteady to finish the decorated cakes and it would be better if one of the chefs in training did that – but she was not to be dissuaded. James’ attention wandered as they made a list of the ingredients that they would need.  

James was worried that their supply of ice would not be sufficient. There were many ice wells in London where ice was stored until it was wanted by customers. It was cut up from the waterways, ponds and lakes, and there was a plentiful supply in the harsh winters when even the Thames froze over. It was a nuisance that they had to apply to owners of ice houses for their supply.

He resolved that when he took over running the house (as he now anticipated) that Anne and Domenico had established in Earls Court in the country that he would have an ice house dug deep in the garden. He could then be independent and be able to stock up from the consignments bought in the winter more cheaply.  

At least the gardens there now produced the flavours they used for the ice cream – violets, bergamot, orange flowers from the orangery, jasmine and elderflower. The market gardens around the house were producing plentiful fruits, flowers and vegetables to be sold at Covent Garden market if they were not needed for the business. He knew that the aristocratic neighbours called the house ‘Current Jelly Hall’ but he was also aware that his family was a good deal more prosperous than they were, despite their pretensions. He was impatient to leave the house on Berkeley Square and living over the business all the time, even though he recognised that it was useful being on the spot on the upper floors.

He suddenly remembered that he must order some more straw. This was used inside the baskets to pack around the ice buckets used to transport the ice creams and cold desserts to the elegant establishments where the balls were held. They collected the baskets, buckets and dishes the following day but the straw always diminished, scattered by the servants in the rush to serve everything before it melted. 

He was very grateful for the piped water that was available in London. It seemed now that every house had a supply, especially in numbered squares like Berkeley Square, piped right to the faucet in the kitchen. The system did break down when the wooden pipes sprung a leak, and he had always to keep a reserve in a tank at the back in case of failure, but it was so much easier than drawing water from a well. Of course, the fees had to be paid to the water company and it was another unavoidable expense.

At last, they had finished the planning and the orders for the materials. He went out to the square for fresher air and to ensure that the waiters were providing a good service outside to carriages waiting under the shading plane trees. The Pot and Pineapple at 7-8 Berkeley Square, first established by Domenico Negri, was called after the pineapple which appeared on their sign and on the business cards as a symbol of luxury, but now it was just known everywhere fashionable as Gunter’s tea shop. It was on the east side of the square with the other commercial establishments, but the rest of the elegant square was occupied by the fashionable and well bred, drawing the custom of others.

Beau Brummel, the shaper of fashion, had recently moved to Berkeley Square to number 42, giving even more prominence to the fashionable area. He knew, too, that Horace Walpole who lived at number 11, was unwell. Walpole was known as a keen observer and recorder of the fashionable ladies arriving in their curricles and barouches, to be attended to by gentlemen lounging against the carriage door while they ate the rapidly melting ice cream brought out by the waiters in goblets.

One of his problems were the unpaid bills – some of the gentlemen ran up very large accounts, especially, he felt, the ones connected with royalty who had exalted opinions of themselves but never seemed to have any money. It was difficult to obtain settlement without antagonising the customer and then the Gunter reputation would suffer.

The other big problem with the debts was that the price of sugar was rising, so that their outgoings were much higher. He had heard that there was a new source of sugar, not from the cane but from beet, but he still had to find out whether that was as good a product or, indeed, where to purchase any. He thought that the sugar cane plantations owners in the Caribbean Islands were keeping it out of the market so that their production was not affected.

Many of the owners lived in luxury in London keeping well away from their estates in the hot and humid climate of the West Indies. Sometimes they had brought back black slaves with them and so many now could be seen in attendance of their masters, they were no longer a curiosity. The ships took goods, including copper goods from Swansea, from England to Africa to purchase more slaves - the plantation owners needed a frequent supply.

And then there was the tax on sugar imposed by the government that raised the price even higher. He was hopeful that the import of refined sugar from the east by the East India Company instead of from the Caribbean would bring down the price. They were dependent on others for their supply of sugar, without which the business could not survive – almost everything else he could plan to provide from his own sources and control the cost. He shook his head to clear it from the worries and went back inside to complete his orders.

Read the printed version of Gunter's Teashop with illustrations and extra historical notes.