CIGARS
See Also: CIGARETTES; SNUFF; MENU
Cigar Vendors
Davidoff
of London
The
Davidoff cigar firm was founded in Geneva in 1912 by Henri Davidoff, an
immigrant from The Ukraine. Following
the Cuban Revolution the company proved able to establish a business
relationship with the Castro regime.
Location:
35 St James's Street, SW1A 1HD (blue, white)
Website:
www.davidofflondon.com
J.J.
Fox & Robert Lewis
There
has been a tobacconists business at No. 19 St James's Street since 1787. In 1947 James J. Fox of Ireland opened a shop
in London. In 1992 Fox acquired the
Robert Lewis cigar business.
Location:
19 St James's Street, SW1A 1ES (red, pink)
Website:
www.jjfox.co.uk
Sautter
of Mayfair
Sautter
of Mayfair sells cigars and cigar accessories.
The business was founded in 1979.
Location:
106 Mount Street W1Y 5HE (blue, turquoise)
Website:
www.sauttercigars.com
Cuban Cigars
In 2022
it was still the case that some American visitors would buy large quantities of
Cuban-made cigars in London in order to take them back to the United
States. Some of them felt like
bootleggers .
An Untimely Report
In
March 1941 the Cuban National Commission for Tobacco informed Sir George
Ogilvie-Forbes, the British Ambassador to Cuba, that it was planning to send
Winston Churchill a cigar cabinet that would contain 2400 cigars. This prompted speculation that the gift might
be an oblique assassination attempt. It
was speculated that some of the cheroots might contain fatal poisons.
During
the summer the cabinet arrived in Britain.
It was lodged in a bonded warehouse.
M.I.5 commissioned Gerald Roche Lynch, the Chief Chemical Pathologist at
St Mary's Hospital, to examine the case's contents. He was the Senior Official Analyst for the
Home Office and, as such, had the unofficial soubriquet the king s
poisoner . He analysed 47 of the
cigars. Three of them were found to
contain foreign bodies . These were
starch, mouse hair, and insect droppings.
In
September the cabinet was delivered to Downing Street, where Churchill took
possession of it with relish. On the
evening of the 19th, some six weeks before Professor Roche made
known his conclusions, the Prime Minster passed round cheroots from the case at
a meeting of the Defence Committee. Had
the cigars been poisoned, not only would the premier have died but so would
have the ministers and military chiefs who were then leading Britain's war
effort.
Location:
10 Downing Street, SW1A 2AA (orange, red)
St Mary s
Hospital, Praed Street, W2 1NY (red, turquoise)
See
Also: WINSTON CHURCHILL; HOSPITALS St
Mary's Hospital
David
Backhouse 2024