CATERING

[‘The most fashionable place in London’: The Clarendon Hotel, Bond Street; Foreign 'Great and Good@] Around 180 entries in the hotel guestbook, on extracted leaves, the greater part of them signatures of ‘Nobility and Gentry, and Foreigners of rank’.

Author: 
‘The most fashionable place in London’: The Clarendon Hotel, Bond Street [Georgian England]
Publication details: 
The Clarendon Hotel, Bond Street, London. The entries all said to date from 1831.
£1,200.00

The Clarendon Hotel was once - as ‘Routledge’s Popular Guide to London’ stated in 1862 - ‘the most fashionable place in London’, and the present collection of autograph signatures from its guestbook, all of them said to date from 1831, bear witness to the fact that - as ‘Gilbert’s Visitor’s Guide to London’ (1851) states - it was ‘frequented by the Nobility and Gentry, and Foreigners of rank’. Its reputation had been made during the Regency period, and in 1820 ‘Leigh’s New Picture of London’ stated that it ‘and Jaquiers are now one hotel’.

[Searcy, Tansley & Co. London caterers, and the 'artistic design' for a cake by 'Miss Harmsworth'.] Typed Letter Signed ('F. S. Physick') from director Frank Savill Physick to Cecil Harmsworth, regarding their catering of an event for his family..

Author: 
Searcy, Tansley & Co., London caterers (Frank Savill Physick (1882-1983), Director) [Cecil Harmsworth (1869-1948), 1st Baron Harmsworth]
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Searcy, Tansley & Co. (1918) Ltd., 19 Sloane Street, London, S.W.1. 21 March 1928.
£56.00

2pp., 4to. In good condition, lightly aged, with the two leaves pinned together. Referring to his wife Emilie, Harmsworth has written in red pencil at the head of the letter 'Em to see'. Physick begins by thanking Harmsworth and his wife for their 'most generous appreciation of our efforts'.

Contract signed by Sir Polydore De Keyser, in which he undertakes to give a copy of the 'Stranger's guide to London and its environs' to 'every one of the travellers who are living, every day, in my hotel [De Keyser's Royal Hotel, London]'.

Author: 
Sir Polydore de Keyser (1832-1918), Belgium-born proprietor of De Keyser's Royal Hotel, the first Roman Catholic since the Reformation to be elected Lord Mayor of London (1887-1888)
Publication details: 
With stamp of the Royal Hotel, London. 12 March 1859. The contract printed by 'Imp. Hervey, 20, rue Cades, Paris.'
£150.00

The contract is a form (1p., 12mo) printed in English in Paris by Imprimerie Hervey, and completed in autograph by De Keyser, with his stamp. It is in good condition, on aged paper, laid down on a larger sheet on which the words 'Royal Hotel, | 26, New Bridge Street, Blackfriars' are written in red ink in a large hand. In the same hand, on the form itself, is written: 'Published separately in English, French, German and Spanish'.

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