Regency Hot Spots: Kelsey’s

By | |

Hero’s Recruiting at Kelsey’s [June 9, 1797] (James Gillray)

This famous fruit shop and confectionery at No. 7 St James Street (British Museum)

Sadly, there is not a lot of information about Kelsey’s broadly available.  I found this early 20th century mention, when specifically discussing Gillray’s print:

A remarkably interesting eighteenth century picture though of somewhat later date is espe cially timely now It is entitled Heroes Re cruiting at Kelsey's or Guard Day at St James Kelsey's was a famous confectionery shop of St James Street and the engraving de picts three officers regaling themselves there The lanky colonel in the center is demolishing by the half dozen glasses of what appears to be chocolate cream while the liliputian captain is busy with a paper of sugar plumbs The third officer in the doorway looks as if he had been indulging himself on such fat producing dainties all his life In the show window appear glasses of whipped cream which was usually flavored with chocolate or vanilla cones of sugar jars of candies grapes pineapples and other fruits The picture suggests not only that the officers and soldiers liked confectionery but that the con fectioner's shop was becoming a place in which to hobnob The International Confectioner. (1918). United States: International Confectioner Incorporated.

Most of the mentions I found are specific to Gillray’s print, demonstrating how critical the satirical prints and the subsequent cataloguing of them by Mary Dorothy George is to unlocking some hidden treasures of teh Regency era.

St. James’s was not a hot spot for confectionery or fruit sellers, but it would have been close to other popular gentlemen’s haunts.

Individuals of these several Companies having congregated their trading establishments at particular spots it may be useful to the reader to be made acquainted with the Chief Seats of Trades in London viz Booksellers Drapers Hosiers Manchester Houses Bankers Upholsterers Fruit Merchants Sugar Bakers Hop Merchants Wine Merchants Wire Workers Type Founders Silk Manufacturers Birmingham and Sheffield Factors Watchmakers Paternoster Row Cloth Fair Wood Street 1 Cheapside and collateral streets Lombard Street and Cornhill Moorfields Thames Street & Botolph Lane Thames Street Borough Tower and Cannon Streets and collaterals Crooked Lane Chiswell Street Spital Fields Cheapside and collateral streets Clerkenwell Britton, J. (1826). The Original Picture of London: Enlarged and Improved, Being a Correct Guide for the Stranger, as Well as for the Inhabitant, to the Metropolis of the British Empire, Together with a Description of the Environs. United Kingdom: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green.

Discover more from Regency Reader

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.