#galleryyuhself/POS Gazette

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Galleryyuhself - Researched by Lee Johnson from the archive of Angelo Bissessarsingh.

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This is an ad from the POS Gazette in 1870. Look at the bottom section of the ad and you’ll see a section advertising its restaurant.

It was clearly a small evolution of the Trinidad Ice Company, accustomed to selling meats, wines and other foodstuffs to evolve into a restaurant.

It’s likely that it was one of the first restaurants in the (British) Caribbean. The French were the ones who initiated the idea of the restaurant. After the defeat of Napoleon, several of the gourmet chefs who had worked for the French nobility, found it lucrative to offer their services to the broader public (One Mathurin Roze de Chantoiseau is credited as being the “author’ of the modern restaurant).

Trinidad at the time was essentially French; and the royalist, French gentry who made up the planter class (and whose purchases seemed like a shopping list from a gourmet deli, catering to lifestyles eager to ape Parisian fashion) would have been customers to this new establishment. The restaurant offered substantially different fare from the inns and taverns that were the only other places of public food consumption.

The restaurant was initially a kind of dish, made up of a variety of herbs, usually brandy and a selection of meats, slowly reduced to a bouillon consistency. This concoction was seen as a health restorative. Indeed, the word restaurant is derived from the word restaurer, the French for restore.

Just as the Parisian society would go to cafes to enjoy coffee, so too would they go to specialist places to enjoy the meal, restaurant. These specialist places effortlessly morphed into the modern restaurant where one went to enjoy the delights of specialist cuisine.

Trinidad in 1870 (or the white French creole society) was but a heartbeat behind fashionable Parisian society.

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Galleryyuhself - Vintage Tobago.

Have you ever seen some of our vintage 19th century newspapers? This copy of The Tobago News is dated December 3rd, 1892!

These vintage Tobago newspapers were called, “The News” and were published every Saturday morning on Main Street, Scarborough by William C. Murrell. The price of a subscription was 9 shillings a year, once paid in advance. To subscribers in other colonies, the price was 12 shillings.

This newspaper was important to merchants who wished to advertise their goods, and also helped provide information about local events and news from around the world to citizens of Tobago. It operated as a gazette, or, an official journal of abstract current events. Newspapers like these are important to researchers as they help provide insight into key events, and help trace the chronology of the history of Trinidad and Tobago throughout major historical events.

How far back do you think our Newspaper Collection here at the National Archives goes?

Visit us at our Public Search Room at #105 St. Vincent Street, POS to view our Newspaper Collection, and more! To schedule an appointment, please contact us at 623-2874 ext. 3035 or 3036 or forward an enquiry in an email to enquiries@archives.gov.tt for more information.