At the Star Hotel somewhere on Deansgate pictured here in 1908, The Grand Lodge of the Loyal Orange Institution of England was established, with a Colonel Taylor of Moston being elected as Grand Master in 1807 [1]. Was this around the time that the Irish communities of Ancoats/Angel Meadow (Irish Town) and Oxford Road (Little Ireland) Manchester were becoming established?
Earlier, at some point in the eighteenth century a gentleman's club was formed to discuss punch (booze) and politics, by a local character called John Shaw at his Punch House (later to become Sinclair's Oyster Bar) near the Old Shambles. Punch was served in china bowls and a shilling bowl was called a "P of punch", a sixpence bowl a "Q", whereby a member on his own would ask for a Q while two or more members would order a P. This could be this the origin of the phrase "mind your Ps and Qs" but then again it could be another pub link as in Pints and Quarts. I digress, the Punch House club moved around from pub to pub and many decades later in 1860 it came to the Star Hotel where it met for 7 years, before going onto the Mitre Hotel near the Cathedral [2].
1. The Annals of Manchester: a Chronological Record From the Earliest Times to the End of 1885, Ed. William E. A. Axon (year unknown)
2. Memorials of Manchester Streets, Richard Wright Proctor (1874).
Earlier, at some point in the eighteenth century a gentleman's club was formed to discuss punch (booze) and politics, by a local character called John Shaw at his Punch House (later to become Sinclair's Oyster Bar) near the Old Shambles. Punch was served in china bowls and a shilling bowl was called a "P of punch", a sixpence bowl a "Q", whereby a member on his own would ask for a Q while two or more members would order a P. This could be this the origin of the phrase "mind your Ps and Qs" but then again it could be another pub link as in Pints and Quarts. I digress, the Punch House club moved around from pub to pub and many decades later in 1860 it came to the Star Hotel where it met for 7 years, before going onto the Mitre Hotel near the Cathedral [2].
1. The Annals of Manchester: a Chronological Record From the Earliest Times to the End of 1885, Ed. William E. A. Axon (year unknown)
2. Memorials of Manchester Streets, Richard Wright Proctor (1874).
Mind your 'p's' and 'q's' is from printers mixing up the said letters in typesetting.
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