2-888-195 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Artisan's Home, Spitalfields - the Coffee Room, 1850. 'The directors of the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes...have...extended their operations to one of the most crowded districts of Spitalfields; where they have undertaken the erection of a large building for single men...Any respectable single man of the working classes, on payment of three shillings...becomes a tenant for one week'. The coffee room is '...a spacious and well-lighted coffee-room, with an open roof of stained timbers, supported by cast-iron columns...The tables are arranged in boxes, and here is supplied coffee, or a more substantial meal, according to a fixed scale of charge...The structure has been erected from the designs and under the superintendence of Mr. William Beck, architect, by Mr. S. Grimsdell, builder'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.