Jonathan’s

A noted coffee-house in Change Alley, described in the Tatler as the general mart of stock-jobbers.

⁂ What is now called the Stock Exchange was called Jonathan’s.

“Yesterday the brokers and others … came to a resolution that [the new building] instead of being called ‘New Jonathan’s,ʹ should be called ‘The Stock Exchange.ʹ … . The brokers then collected sixpence each, and christened the house with punch.”—Newspaper paragraph (July 15, 1773).

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.