Minerva Café

Minerva Café
Restaurant information
Established	1916
Street address	144 High Holborn
City	London
Country	United Kingdom

The Minerva Café was a vegetarian cafe founded by suffragettes at 144 High Holborn in London's Holborn district.^[1]

History

The Minerva Café was founded by the Women's Freedom League in June 1916. The president of the group was vegetarian Charlotte Despard.^[2]

The British Socialist Party and the Communist Workers Party of Sylvia Pankhurst also met at the cafe. The cafe produced a "considerable" profit used to fund the Women's Freedom League activities.^[3] Constance Markievicz spoke at the cafe in February 1923 at a meeting of the Irish Self-Determination League.^[4] The Australian writer Miles Franklin worked as a cook at the cafe.^[5]

In 1918, when the Representation of the People Act passed, the Minerva Café served a meal of vegetable soup, lentil cutlets, and rhubarb tarts.^[2]

References

1. "The Minerva Café | libcom.org". libcom.org. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
2. Richardson, Elsa (2021). "Cranks, Clerks, and Suffragettes: The Vegetarian Restaurant in British Culture and Fiction 1880–1914" (PDF). Literature and Medicine.
3. "The Minerva Café". libcom.org. Retrieved 26 December 2018.
4. Lauren Arrington (24 November 2015). Revolutionary Lives: Constance and Casimir Markievicz. Princeton University Press. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-691-16124-2.
5. Ross Davies (5 January 2015). Three Brilliant Careers: Nell Malone Miles Franklin Kath Ussher. Boolarong Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-1-925046-82-3.

External links

• Tableware from the Minerva Cafe