Craddock, Harry Lawson

Craddock, Harry Lawson (1876–1964) was largely responsible for igniting interest in cocktails among London’s Bright Young People during the 1920s and 1930s. The “dean of cocktail shakers” was born in Stroud in the English Cotswolds. Arriving in New York in March 1897, Craddock worked his way from waiting tables to bartending. By 1906, he had joined the bar team at New York’s prestigious Hotel Knickerbocker and then worked briefly at the Hoffman House. By 1918, he was bar manager at the prestigious Holland House, where he remained until Prohibition closed the doors on the bar and his American career. Despite having become a naturalized American citizen in 1916, Craddock returned to England in 1920 and was hired immediately to work the dispensary bar at London’s Savoy Hotel. See Knickerbocker and Hoffman House.

With his acquired American accent, naturalization papers, and bar training, Craddock delivered what his expat customers craved. To accommodate Americans who felt women should not work in bars, the Savoy retired its two female bartenders in 1925 and installed Craddock at the helm.

Five years later, management asked him to compile his drinks recipes into a single volume. The result, The Savoy Cocktail Book, presented a kaleidoscopic view of the era’s mixed drinks (it also drew heavily on Hugo Ensslin’s 1916 Recipes for Mixed Drinks, the last important New York cocktail book before Prohibition). See Ensslin, Hugo. Determined to elevate the quality of British bartending, Craddock joined Café Royal head barman William J. Tarling in 1934 to found the United Kingdom Bartenders Guild, which trained and provided professional support for the country’s growing legion of bartenders. See Tarling, William James “Billy” and United Kingdom Bartenders Guild (UKBG).

In 1939, Craddock took over the bar at the Dorchester, where he served its temporary wartime residents Prime Minister Winston Churchill, members of his cabinet, and US general Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1951, Craddock opened the refurbished bar at Brown’s Hotel, another Mayfair landmark. He spent his final years living on National Assistance, secluded in a South Kensington nursing home, until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1963.

“‘King’ of Cocktail Mixers.” Pall Mall Gazette, June 11, 1920, 7.

New York Passport Office. US Passport Application 5108, May 30, 1920.

Percy, H. L. “Britons Slake Thirst in Sea of New Drinks.” Ogden Standard Examiner, May 31, 1935, 17.

By: Anistatia R. Miller and Jared M. Brown