AUTUMN EXHIBITION: TEA AND COFFEE IN THE AGE OF DR JOHNSON

September 26 - December 13 2008

Tea and coffee, now so familiar, were once viewed as exotic and sometimes suspicious entities. Coffee was described as tasting like 'boiled soot' and accused of destroying men's virility, while tea was said to sap the nation's moral fibre and wreck the beauty of English women. This exhibition will look at the rituals, social connotations and mystique of these two drinks in Dr Johnson's day, covering the rise and fall of London's famous eighteenth-century coffee-houses and their legacy, and the triumph of tea as England's national beverage.

The exhibition will display items from small and private collections which have rarely been displayed before, including such items as Johnson's own teapot, Sir Joshua Reynolds' beautifully preserved, velvet-lined tea-caddy, and many other contemporary essays, tea and coffee equipage, and prints.

Entry will be free with admission to the House.

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EVENTS

Wednesday 29 October 2008, 7pm (doors open at 6.15pm)
LECTURE: News, Business and Conversation: London Coffee-houses in the eighteenth century

A talk by Markman Ellis, professor of Eighteenth-century Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, and author of 'The Coffee-House: A Cultural History'.

£12/£10 concessions. Includes a glass of wine.

Wednesday 12 November 2008, 7pm (doors open at 6.15pm)
TEA TASTING with Stephen Twining, Director of Corporate Relations, R. Twining & Co Ltd

£12/£10 concessions.

Wednesday 26 November 2008, 7pm (doors open at 6.15pm)
COFFEE-TASTING: Coffees of the World, with Giles Hilton, Product Director of Whittard

£12/£10 concessions.

22 October 2008, 10am - 4pm
BLACK GEORGIANS: Study Day at the Hunterian Museum
and the Foundling Museum

A team of speakers examine some dramatically different experiences of black people living in eighteenth and early nineteenth century England. Presentations will be given on subjects ranging from London's black street children, the life of Samuel Johnson's Jamaican servant and friend Francis Barber, and George Alexander Gratton, a child slave exhibited as a curiosity because of his skin condition, piebaldism.

The study day will start at the Hunterian Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields and continue at the Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury, and will include free entry to Dr Johnson's House Museum off Fleet Street before 22 November.

To book, please contact the Foundling Museum on 0207 841 3600.

ALSO:

14 October 2008, 6.30pm
Repeat of 'Dr Johnson and the Law' by Lord Bingham of Cornhill

A repeat of the talk 'Dr Johnson and the Law' by Lord Bingham of Cornhill, given at Dr Johnson's House in April this year, will be held in Inner Temple Hall.

Bookings can be made at :

http://www.templemusic.org/events/2008/10/14 or by phone on 0207 427 5641.

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Places for all events are limited so you are advised to book early. Most events take place in the Dictionary Garret, with many unavoidable steps. 

BOOKING
If you would like to book any of these events, please send a cheque made payable to Dr Johnson's House Trust along with details of the event, date and type of ticket to Dr Johnson's House, 17 Gough Square , London EC4A 3DE, or call 0207 353 3745.

*** Please include your email or telephone number so that we can let you know when your cheque has arrived. ***

Those entitled to a concessionary rate ticket are the over 60s, students and the registered unemployed.