The Devereux, Devereux Court (geograph 5388212)

The Grecian Coffee House was a coffee house, first established in about 1665 at Wapping Old Stairs in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, by a Greek former mariner called George Constantine. The enterprise proved a success and, by 1677, Constantine had been able to move his premises to a more central location in

Devereux Court Devereux Court is a street in the City of Westminster that runs from Strand in the north to Essex Street in the south. It is entirely pedestrianised. The street is named after Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl ...

, off Fleet Street. In the 1690s, the Grecian Coffee House was the favoured meeting place of the opposition Whigs, a group that included John Trenchard, Andrew Fletcher and

Matthew Tindal Matthew Tindal (1657 – 16 August 1733) was an eminent English deist author. His works, highly influential at the dawn of the Enlightenment, caused great controversy and challenged the Christian consensus of his time. Life Tindal was baptised ...

. In the early years of the eighteenth century, it was frequented by members of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, including Sir

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

, Sir Hans Sloane,

Edmund Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Hal ...

and James Douglas, and the poet and statesman,

Joseph Addison Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richar ...

. Classical scholars were also said to congregate there, and on one occasion, two of them fought a duel in the street outside because they fell out over where to position the accent on an Ancient Greek word. In the 1760s and 1770s it was a favourite haunt of Irish law students, especially "the Templers", those young Irishmen who were studying at the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn ...

. They were attracted there by the presence of the poet and playwright Oliver Goldsmith, who "delighted to entertain his friends there". These friends included the future statesman

Henry Grattan Henry Grattan (3 July 1746 – 4 June 1820) was an Irish politician and lawyer who campaigned for legislative freedom for the Irish Parliament in the late 18th century from Britain. He was a Member of the Irish Parliament (MP) from 1775 to 18 ...

.Kenny, Colum King's Inns and the Kingdom of Ireland'' Irish Academic Press Dublin 1992 ''The Grecian'' was the favourite coffee-house in London of the renowned

Shakespearean William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

scholar

Edmond Malone Edmond Malone (4 October 174125 May 1812) was an Irish Shakespearean scholar and editor of the works of William Shakespeare. Assured of an income after the death of his father in 1774, Malone was able to give up his law practice for at first p ...

. In April 1776, he wrote his father a letter from there, boasting "I am at present writing in a coffee-house, in the midst of so much noise and bustle—the celebrated anti-Sejanus ( Mr. Scott) on one side and Mr. harlesMacklin he actoron the other—that I can't add anything more at present." By 1803, the Grecian was no longer the meeting place of radicals, scholars and scientists but of lawyers and it finally closed in 1843, becoming a pub. The site is now occupied by The Devereux public house and is a Grade II listed building. __NOTOC__

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