Misc. Chesterton Trivia

In 1900 the Boer War was debated vigorously in Bedford Park and everywhere else. Chesterton attended a debate held in the studio of the painter Archie Macgregor in April of that year, and wrote Frances (then his fiancée] about one of the speakers who had held the floor for an hour and a half. "I thought it was five minutes," he said. It was Chesterton's first encounter with Hilaire Belloc. [A.N. Wilson, Hilaire Belloc, New York: Athenaeum, 1984, p. 98]

Mont Blanc, the tavern where Chesterton and Belloc were first introduced in May of 1900, was located at No. 16 Gerrard Street in Soho. In the pre-war years, the place was also a retreat for such literary luminaries as John Masefield, Norman Douglas, Ford Maddox Ford, William Archer, John Galsworthy and Joseph Conrad. [George Williams, Guide to Literary London, Batsford, 1973, p. 210]