What beer Cato St conspirators & Bow St runners were drinking in the Horse & Groom on 23rd Feb 1820
The Horse & Groom is in the first picture. It is the last building on the right hand side of Cato St
The Cato St Conspiracy, a plot to kill the Cabinet, took place 206 years ago on 23rd February 1820.
The action took place in a hayloft in Cato St off Edgware Rd in central London. The street and the building (with blue plaque) remain. What does not remain is the pub opposite where both conspirators and police popped in for a drink on the night.
Below are extracts from the trial of the Conspirators which took place at the Old Bailey in April 1820. The core conspirators were hung at Newgate St on 1st May 1820.
We can see that all concerned were drinking porter. Unfortunately we don’t (at the moment) know whose porter it was. The late beer historian Martyn Cornell noted on social media that there were three porter breweries within a short distance of Cato St. Which brand was being sold would normally be advertised on a board outside the pub. Unfortunately at the moment we only have a side on view of the Horse and Groom.
It is a sort of micro-history and at the moment what better time to focus on the central role of the pub in one of the most interesting events of British history. This is underlined by the point that both conspirators and police frequented the Horse and Groom on 23rd February but also by the fact that on 25th February the inquest into the death of PC Smithers who was killed by Thistlewood in the hayloft was also held in the pub.
Other pubs are also mentioned in the trial transcript and again we find porter being drunk with the bread and cheese to eat, a combination often to be found in accounts of radical meetings and dinners at this time.
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JOHN WRIGHT . I am a patrol of Bow-street, and was one of the party of officers that went to Cato-street. I went to the Horse and Groom, public-house with Ruthven; Cooper and another came in and had a pint of porter. Cooper brought a stick and left it behind him – it was like a broom-stick. I afterwards saw it in the custody of Ruthven.
Before I went to the stable I went into the Horse and Groom, public-house; I saw three or four persons come in, Cooper was one and Gilchrist another; Cooper brought a stick with him, it was a mop-stick or a broomstick, it was left in the room. Gilchrist came again after it, but it had been removed by the boy belonging to the house – it was cut as if to receive a socket. Next day I had a dirk stick brought to me. (Ruthven)
HENRY GILLON . I live at No. 16, Mount-street, Grosvenor-square; I am servant to Mr. Whittle, who is an apothecary. I used to go to the Rising Sun, public-house, in Charles-street, leading from Mount-street to Grosvenor-square, at the corner of the mews. I remember being there on Tuesday, the 22d of February. I saw Brunt there – a tall man was with him.
- Did they take any refreshment – A. Yes, bread, cheese, and porter. Brunt challenged me to play him at dominoes, and I played two games with him. I left the house first, a little before ten o’clock. I left them there.
Thistlewood asked me how many of my countrymen I could muster? and said he should want them at half-past eight o’clock that evening. I told him twenty-six or twenty-seven. He told me I was to muster at the Pomfret Castle, public-house, in Wigmore-street, that is a house a great deal frequented by Irishmen. He told me I was to take some of the best of them to the Foundling Hospital, knock at the porter’s lodge, put a pistol to his head, and at the other lodge we should find
Do you know the Black Dog, in Gray’s Inn-lane – A. I have been to a public-house, which I have since heard was the Black Dog; there was no chair there – it was on a Sunday night; there were seven persons there. (Thomas Chambers)
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