Cocoa Tree Chocolate House

262. Cocoa Tree Chocolate House, Pall Mall. On the south side until 1757 when removed to the site of No. 46 on the north side; between 1787 and 1793 removed to No. 64 Pall Mall. In 1799 removed to No. 64 St. James's Street until about 1835; in 1837 the premises were empty. Re-established certainly by 1853 and ended its existence in 1932.

1757

A well documented history of the Cocoa Tree is to be found in the L.C.C. Survey, Vols, XXIX & XXX; according to the writer, the house removed in 1757 to the north side of Pall Mall 'the site of which is now occupied by No. 46 (the Army & Navy Club Annexe)'.

1761

When Lord Bute came to power in 1761, the Cocoa Tree was known as the 'Ministerial Club'.

1762

Gibbon was a member of the Cocoa Tree Club; he dined here Nov. 24 1762 and after going to see the play 'The Spanish Friar' 'retired to the Cocoa-tree'. That respectable body, he says, 'affords every evening a sight truly English'. (Timbs—History of Clubs, p. 70.)

1764–87

The Proprietor, Charles Soleirol, was succeeded in 1764 by Thomas Griffiths, who appears to have remained until 1787. A letter in my collection, dated 10 Oct. 1787 is addressed to 'Mr. Griffith, Cocoa Tree, Pall Mall'; the letter bears the hand-stamp of the Hermitage Office of the London Penny Post.

1765–75

Contemporary mention, 1765, is to be found in the Chatham Correspondence. 1775 in the Memoirs of William Hickey (I, p. 320), when Robert Mitford gambled and lost a fortune in less than three years at the Cocoa Tree and other clubs.

1780

Timbs places the Cocoa Tree in St. James's Street in 1780.

Cocoa Tree Chocolate House

As the recognized Tory meeting-place in the St. James's neighbourhood the Cocoa Tree's period of greatest political importance was probably during the early years of the reign of George III. It was probably also at about this time that the establishment ceased to cater for all comers and followed the example of White's in becoming a proprietary club. In his Journal for 1762 Edward Gibbon relates how he 'dined at the Cocoa-tree with Holt. ... We went thence to the play ..., and when it was over, returned to the Cocoa-tree. That respectable body, of which I have the honor to be a member, affords every evening a sight truly English. Twenty or thirty, perhaps, of the first men in the Kingdom, in point of fashion and fortune, supping at little tables covered with a napkin, in the middle of a Coffee-room, upon a bit of cold meat, or a Sandwich, and drinking a glass of punch. At present, we are full of Privy Counsellors and Lords of the Bedchamber; who, having jumped into the Ministry, make a very singular medley of their old principles and language, with their modern ones.' (fn. 44) The Whigs' dislike of the club's influence at this time is illustrated in a letter written by Earl Temple, who after criticizing the responsibility of the Cocoa Tree set in obtaining the inclusion of the King's mother in the Regency Act of 1765, continues 'it is well they have not given us a King, if they have not; for many think Lord Bute is King'. (fn. 45) Within a few years, however, the club appears to have become a favourite resort for high gambling rather than for political influence, Horace Walpole relating in 1780 that 'Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa Tree, the difference of which amounted to an hundred and fourscore thousand pounds.' (fn. 46)

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44. Gibbon's Journal, introd. D. M. Low, 1929, p. 185.
45. Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, ed. W. S. Taylor and J. H. Pringle, 1838, vol. ii, p. 309.
46. The Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. Mrs. Paget Toynbee, vol. xi, 1904, p. 126.