Item 604 - Album of menus for dinners attended by Lawrence Williams

1 volume (22.5 x 29 cm) containing 36 sheets + 12 loose pieces

An album containing 86 menus, many of them for private dinners given by Lawrence Williams and his circle of friends at Cambridge. The menus are mounted, and the pages for the nearly 60 private dinners for 1895-1896 carry handwritten notes recording the attendees and the host. Many of the menus were printed by Redin & Co., Cambridge, and feature a variety of illustrations, with both the courses and Williams's name printed. Williams hosted some of these dinners; other frequent hosts include E. Harold Johnston, the Hon. Wilfred James, Alfred F. Sotheby, G. O. G. Bramson, H. M. Dent, O. J. Kuhn, Herbert W. Oakeley, and Tom Simpson. There are five menus for a club, the 'Angels' (motto: 'Nunc est bibendum'), whose members are listed on the inaugural dinner menu of 27 Feb. 1896: Bramson, James, Johnston, Kuhn, Simpson, Williams, C. R. Holmes and F. E. C. Pilkington. There are also two Trinity College dinner menus and two menus for the Cambridge Drag and Beagle Hunts. Several 21st birthday dinner menus are mounted on pages signed by those present.

The private menus for 1897 and after tend to lack lists of attendees, and are intermixed with menus for University events (the Oxford v Cambridge Skating Match, the Drag & Beagle Hunt Dinner), the Ghezirah Palace in Cairo, dinners for the Officers of the 3rd Battalion D.C. Light Infantry and for the Anglesey Summer Assizes. At the back of the album are two programmes for A.D.C. Smoking Concerts in 1895. There are two invitations, including one from the Officers of the Royal Welch Fusiliers to the Officers of the 3rd Battalion in May 1898. Laid in loose are two slips detailing fines for minor infractions at Trinity, four drawings of 'Life in the Trenches' by [V. L. Pinner?], a note in Williams's hand recording dinners and attendees for Oct.-Nov. 1896, and a letter from A. Hartmann of Webb's Restaurant, 3 & 4 Market Street, Cambridge, 4 Feb. 1897 to Williams enclosing 2 menus for his approval [menus not with letter].

Written at top of front free endpaper: 'Printed by E. H. Johnston, Trinity Hall, 2 Jesus Lane, Camb.'

A binding ticket for Redin & Co., Cambridge appears on the inside front cover of the album.