Malcolm Campbell

Malcolm Campbell opened the new Union Coffee House in Stabroek in 1805, with an upper floor which could be used for ‘concerts, balls and meetings’ [Martin Banham, Cambridge History of Theatre]. He appears to have been in partnership with the timber merchant John Dalgleish Patterson, who may have supplied the materials for the extensive buildings:

The House is two stories high, raised Nine feet from the Ground on a Brick Wall, having Two Fronts, each Sixty Feet long by Twenty six Feet wide, forming an angle, besides some spacious and well-fitted up Rooms. There are Six Bed-Chambers, furnished with Bedsteads, Mattresses, Musquito Nettings, &c . . . the Buildings attached thereto, consisting of a Side-Building, Fifty Feet long by Twelve feet wide, two stories high, divided into Eight Chambers, partly furnished, having a Gallery the whole Extent of the Front; a Building, comprising Two Kitchens, with Ovens, and Two Store Rooms . . . Also, a Shed Building, Eighty Feet long by Sixteen Feet wide adapted for either Stable or Store, together with a Dwelling House on the North East Corner of Lot No. 7, Twenty six feet long and Eighteen Feet wide. [Essequebo & Demerara Gazette, June 1806]

The Union Coffee House, 1817

Campbell was hoping to leave the colony in 1806 and offered the property for sale. However, by 1808 Campbell was dead and the business had been taken on by Thomas Marsh.