The Langham, London - a history of the luxury hotel
Article added on February 6, 2004

Among the first American guests at The Langham was the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). He arrived on June 28, 1868 for a two-week visit during which he received an honorary degree from Cambridge University. In his honor, a dinner with 300 guests was held at The Langham on July 9, with William Gladstone (1809-1898) as a speaker. Gladstone first hid behind the curtains, claiming that was too shy and unable to speak. He had to be persuaded to talk to the audience, which he finally did eloquently, first paying tribute to the excellence of American literature in general, then to Longfellow's poems, before returning to the House of Commons.
 
The Welsh-born explorer, journalist and later Unionist MP Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) frequently stayed at the Langham. In 1869, James Gordon Bennet of the New York Herald sent him to find the Scottish explorer and missionary David Livingstone (1813-1873) in Africa. Stanley stayed at The Langham while he was planning his journey. On November 3, 1871 he found Livingstone near Lake Tanganyika, where he pronounced his historic casual greeting: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume". A simple "Yes" was the reply.

When the American journalist Stanley published his 730 page book How I Found Livingstone in 1872, he was already feted as a hero. After Livingstone's death in Africa in 1873, Stanley arrived again in London, where he studied the files of stories of Livingstone's death. The journalist stayed of course at The Langham, as he did in April 1874, when the corpse of Livingstone arrived in London to be buried in Westminster Abbey. It was the night of the burial that Stanley decided in his rooms at The Langham to make a great journey of exploration to the great lakes and the source of the Nile and then down the River Congo to the sea.

Among the other famous Americans who stayed at The Langham is Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, the author of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. In later life, he dissipated his fortune and energies in foreign travel.
 
Because of its many guests from the United States, the two libraries at The Langham and the "current literature stand" were regularly packed with American newspapers and journals. After all, US citizens were the most profitable guests, worth pampering. Charles Dickens, son of the famous novelist, rightly wrote in his Dictionary of London in 1879 that the hotel had become "a special American resort".
 
The Langham Hotel Company produced a hardback, pocket-sized Guide to London, of which eighteen thousand copies were distributed in its first edition. The guide was published at regular intervals until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

Since Queen Victoria continued in solitude to mourn the loss of her beloved Prince Consort, Albert, who had died of typhoid in 1861, many foreign potentates visiting the capital of the British Empire were left to find their own accommodation. The Prince of Wales patronized The Langham. Visiting royalty and leaders naturally took apartments in the hotel. Former heads of state in exile were welcomed too. Emperor Louis Napoleon III spent much of his enforced exile from France at The Langham, where he occupied a suite on the first floor.

In the open courtyard of the Langham, with the help of the hotel staff of duty, Louis Napoleon III built of old carved coats of arms, unwanted sculptures and stones what he called La Fernerie, a twenty foot high Gothic folly in the form of a mock house front with an arch decorated with heraldic tiles. It stood as a monument to the exiled emperor's final empty days for over a century.


 
Competition increased over the years. The Savoy Hotel in the Strand opened in 1889, with Cesar Ritz as its first manager and Auguste Escoffier, who had worked for Napaoleon III, as Head Chef. Claridges was totally rebuilt between 1898 and 1899 and the Carlton Hotel opened in 1899 and stole Escoffier from the Savoy. 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was a regular visitor to the hotel as his home was a short distance away. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Conan Doyle never made more than £300 a year as a doctor. In order to increase his meager income, he wrote his first story A Study in Scarlet in 1887. His Sherlock Holmes stories, first published in The Strand Magazine, brought him fame and fortune. Several of them feature The Langham.

For instance, in his first story, A Scandal in Bohemia, published in 1891, the central character was Count von Kramm, based on His Royal Highness Wilhelm Gottsreich von Ormstein, the King of Bohemia. Conan Doyle had observed him when the king stayed at the Langham. In A Scandal in Bohemia, when Sherlock Holmes asked the count where he was staying, von Kramm answered: "You will find me at the Langham under the name of the Count von Kramm."
 
Among the real-life legends who stayed in The Langham were composers and musicians. Antonin Dvorak regularly visited the hotel from 1884 and wrote his Symphony No 8 in G Minor especially for English audiences. On one occasion, Dvorak tried to save money and asked whether he could share a double room with his grown-up daughter. The outraged manager of The Langham refused, whether on moral or financial grounds is unknown. (Click here for sheet music by Antonin Dvorak).
 
When the Prince of Wales became King Edward VII, his long association with the Langham Hotel ended. When the hotel's board of director's refused to employ the Swiss Cesar Ritz, whom the king claimed to have discovered, as head chef, Edward VII lent his support to Ritz starting our on hi own. The Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly, the first steel framed building in Britain, was opened in 1906.
 
The Langham Hotel profited from the nearby All Souls Church, built in 1824 by John Nash, one of the most fashionable places to be married in London. The hotel specialized in wedding breakfasts and receptions. Additional guests were brought in by the nearby St George's Hall, opened in 1867, the headquarters of the London Academy of Music as well as by the Queens' Hall, opened in 1893. The conductor Arturo Toscanini was one of the many musicians who stayed at the hotel.

In 1914 just before the outbreak of war, the hotel almost lost his reputation overnight. The Langham was managed by H. B. Robarts, who refused to serve a party of blind people. The newspapers made great play of the incident and Robarts obstinately held his ground, insisting that it was not "in the interest of the guests that blind people should be led through the hall."

During the First World War, many hotels became government offices or hospitals for the wounded from Flanders, not so The Langham, which profited from the situation. During the war, guests made due allowances for shortcoming and shortages, which saved the hotel a lot of money in running the hotel. At the same, The Langham continued to enjoy a large turnover. Furthermore, the hotel was never a target of German bombs. The orchestra continued to play in the Palm Court.

However, during the war, the hotel grew shabby. The almost annual updating of the facilities and renovations could not be continued. At peace, the Langham Hotel Company tried to catch up under manager Stanley Parr. In 1920, the vestibule was replaced by a large neo-classical room called the Foyer. Designed by Belcher and Joass, it filled the entire original courtyard. New lifts, new wallpapers and an enlarged wedding reception room on the first floor were some of the innovations of the time. Guests could also chose between electric fire, radiator or the traditional coal fire, all separately priced as extras.
 
In the late 1920's, Captain H. E. Mills took over as manager. However, he lacked the business skills to keep The Langham in the forefront of London hotels. The young went to the newer built Ritz, Savoy and Dorchester, largely because their parents preferred the old Langham. Furthmore, The Savoy and others had introduced dancing with lunch or dinner. The Langham with its history continued to attract much of the aristocracy and the English country set. In 1925, the industry magazine Caterer pointed out that the hotel was still "kept constantly full through recommendation."
 
In 1919, the party for John Alcock and Arthur Brown, who celebrated the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic, taking off from St Johns in Newfoundland, was held at The Langham. Playwright and novelist Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was a frequent hotel visitor, even after he established in the South of France in 1928.

Continued: Back to Part 1 + Forward to Part 3.

The façade of the Langham. Photo © The Langham, London.


View of a guest room. Photo © The Langham, London.


The Infinity Suite Lounge. Photo © The Langham, London.




The Artesian Bar. Photo © The Langham, London.
 
Source, literature
Tom Steel: The Langham, est. 1865: A History, 1990. The article on the left is closely based on Tom Steel's history of The Langham. - The whereabouts of the records of the old Langham Hotel Company remains a mystery.