The Coffee House and the Birth of Public Debate

In the great cities of seventeenth-century Europe, a new kind of meeting place appeared that would change the way people did business, exchanged news and argued about ideas. This was the coffee house, and for the better part of a century it stood at the very centre of public life. The drink it served was a novelty from far away, for coffee did not originate in Europe at all. It had long been enjoyed across the Middle East, in the lands of the Ottoman Empire and the Arab world, and it was from there that the fashion for it, and for the establishments that served it, gradually made its way westward. Travellers returning from those regions brought back tales of the busy coffee houses they had seen, and merchants soon spotted an opportunity in the strange dark drink and the sociable rooms in which it was consumed.

England's first coffee house is generally said to have opened in the university city of Oxford in the 1650s, and others soon followed in London and beyond. They spread with remarkable speed. Within a few decades the coffee house had become a familiar feature of urban life, and a respectable man might visit one several times a day to read the newspapers, meet his acquaintances and catch up on the latest news. Unlike the tavern, where the strong drink on offer tended to loosen tongues and cloud judgement, the coffee house served a beverage that kept its customers alert, and it acquired a reputation as a place of sober and serious conversation.

One of the most appealing features of the coffee house was how little it cost to take part. For the price of a single cup, usually just a penny, a customer could sit for hours, listen to the discussions going on around him and join in as he pleased. For this reason coffee houses became known, half in jest, as 'penny universities', since a man might pick up a great deal of learning and news there for the price of a penny, without ever paying a university fee. People of different ranks and trades rubbed shoulders in a way that was unusual for the time, and the free flow of talk gave the coffee house much of its lively character.

The coffee house was not merely a place for idle chatter. It quickly became an essential centre of commerce, where merchants, traders and men of business gathered to strike deals, share commercial intelligence and hear the latest news of ships and cargoes. Particular coffee houses came to specialise in particular trades, so that anyone seeking a certain kind of business knew exactly where to go. Out of these informal gatherings grew some of the most important institutions of the modern economy. A famous market for marine insurance, for instance, began in a London coffee house frequented by those with an interest in shipping, and an early stock exchange grew from another where dealers in shares chose to meet.

Not everyone welcomed the new institution. Because the coffee house was a place where men of all sorts gathered freely to discuss the events of the day, including the conduct of those in power, it made some rulers deeply uneasy. A gathering where news spread quickly and opinions were exchanged without restraint could easily be imagined as a breeding ground for discontent or even conspiracy. On more than one occasion the authorities attempted to suppress the coffee houses or to place them under closer supervision, fearing them as centres of dangerous talk, though such efforts generally met with strong protest and little lasting success.

In time the golden age of the coffee house passed, as other institutions took over many of its functions and social habits changed. Yet its influence proved remarkably lasting. The newspapers that were read aloud in its rooms, the insurance markets and stock exchanges that grew from its tables, and above all the idea that ordinary people might gather in public to discuss the affairs of their society, all outlived the coffee house itself. In its crowded, smoky rooms something recognisably modern was taking shape: a public willing and able to talk things over for itself. The habit of gathering to read, argue and decide, once formed in the coffee house, would not easily be given up.