So we are here at the river restaurant yes Emily
yeah which is where drew you won't between 1919 and 1927 and this is the
restaurant in action wow I love this 1920s it's so glamorous
it was one of the best if not the best restaurant in the whole world laughs
Zhen Liu he was head winemaker he was his wine waiter yes and he
actually got an award all right a Frenchman called Chevalier de Mille
that you cut your joke no not at all it's a very prestigious distinction this
was given to him in 1922 here's his title in French shape do selfies Viva
Savoy Hotel no fair play to him for a working-class
Frenchman who's come to London he's he's certainly risen in his profession
absolutely and we are extremely lucky and then the Savoy keep an archive of
their former employees and this is his card and the card contains his previous
employment history
Luise employment card reveals that to get to the Savoy he had worked his way
up through the ranks of his profession since his arrival in London in the 1890s
political instability in France and cheaper cross-channel transport
encouraged many young French men and women to seek work in the English
capital by the turn of the century there were tens of thousands of poor French
immigrants crammed into a part of Soho known as La Petite honks many sought
work in the city's flourishing restaurants Louise card records that he
was taken on as a junior waiter by the fashionable Prince's restaurant in 1899
this is a Prince's restaurant it can see very very rich very option and
surrounding Wow you can where is this this is just off Piccadilly it was
really very nice place is run by French people would he have made more money
here than he would have done inherits say this here a French way to have this
immense cachet so these kind of places were looking for Frenchmen exactly
the princes restaurant was a training to the theater crowd so it closed at
impossible hours and this would have been a demanding job yeah
I've got this letter and this is from she's headed the princes restaurant he's
writing to his wife Lizzie she's gone back to her parents house in Norfolk and
he says you asked me to try and come over next Sunday indeed I believe you
struck it unlucky before we have a dinner of 60 Frenchmen and they have got
a licence so it's no use thinking about it for a moment but they couldn't see
why because he had to work late yes and that's that's obviously one of the
striking features it was a hard life yeah Louie would have been working until
two or three six days a week yes very very difficult lifestyle and
probably about 40 shillings a month which works out to be about 80 pound in
contemporary terms and he was supporting by the time that letter was written he
was supporting a wife and child on that as well exactly and we can imagine the
strain there was not much time or married life if we look at the following
census in nineteen eleven nineteen there so we've got the Lizzy is listed first
as wife and then that's been crossed out and foot a head as in head of the family
so the marriage had already broken up in 1911 and Stanley and my grandfather was
only one really careful and some he'd he'd gone and here he is Louisville
Nolan he's 33 he's still married but they've separated he's now living in six
upper Jane Street in one room was so sad
all these back in here German want you to take them with you
so look after Louie and easy thumbing through that thank you so much more look
after them because and why did he come to England we know he came over in the
1890s and he worked over here as a waiter in place like this void and he
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