Soho 1851: The Greatest Christmas Meal Ever Cooked

Summary

This feature first appeared in December 2023 on Londonist: Time Machine, our much-praised history newsletter. To be the first to read new history features like this, sign up for free here. It was, as the Observer noted, “The most extraordinary Christmas dinner that was ever partaken of in this metropolis.” 25 December 1851 saw four tonnes of cooked meat donated from a Soho courtyard, along with enough potatoes to balance your family car. This is the story of the greatest act of Christmas charity ever undertaken in London, and the celebrity chef who drove it. Image: Matt Brown This is Ham Yard, or ‘Ham Yard Village’ as it’s now styled. Today, a trail of illuminated breadcrumbs lures the passer-by into one of Soho’s swankier courtyards. You might linger a while for afternoon tea at the luxurious Ham Yard Hotel, or snuggle up with some winter punch in the heated outdoor seating area. It’s all very civilised. Had you ventured into the courtyard 173 years ago, however, you would have stumbled upon a Christmas miracle… It was December 1851. London was still feeling the after-buzz from the Great Exhibition, which had closed a few weeks before. The hugely successful display of Imperial ingenuity had attracted millions of visitors to the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Prince Albert and his chums had mustered a thousand wonders of the age, all housed inside a colossal glass building, the likes of which the world had never seen. But beyond the twinkling glass, tens of thousands of Londoners lived in abject poverty, their numbers swollen by the recent Irish potato famine. Many lacked even shanty homes, let alone crystal glazing. The meagre meal enjoyed by the Cratchits in Dickens’s recently published novella A Christmas Carol would have seemed lavish compared to the sub-subsistence fare that some families could expect at Christmas. Ham Yard, just off Great Windmill Street in Soho, had become a beacon of hope for such people. Since 1847, it had been home to London’s best-known and...