John Alloo's Chinese restaurant

Professor John Smyth talks about the story behind Sanuel Thomas Gill's lithograph of John Alloo's Chinese restaurant. Video by Gwen Liu.

Transcript

00:00 That is the only image that exists of John O'Lough's restaurant in Main Road, 1853.

00:06 Now the man who did that was an alcoholic, Samuel Thomas Guild.

00:09 They didn't have cameras in those days.

00:11 This was the cheapest way of being able to represent what was going on, an artist.

00:16 But this guy traded his drawings for food and lodging or alcohol.

00:21 We think that's how that sketch came about.

00:25 If you read that Chinese on the top there, you'll read and see it says "Rubbish".

00:30 That is just, he didn't know anything about that so he just put squiggles.

00:34 But that restaurant, that picture became really iconic.

00:39 It actually established John O'Lough as a figure.

00:43 [ Silence ]