In 1897, London’s Lampposts Dispensed Hot Coffee, Tea, and “Fluid Beef”

Open Culture · Oct 21, 2026

Any reader of Victorian literature will wonder how much a ha’penny was actually worth in those days. For a little more than a year at the very end of that period, it could buy you a cup of coffee, cocoa, milk, tea, or “fluid beef” — which would pour out of a lamppost on the corner. The Pluto Lamp, as it was branded, made its debut at the Victorian Era Exhibition, which was held in 1897 to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Amid such attractions as a 360-degree panorama of ancient Rome, Pepper’s ghost illusions, and over 1,200 works of art by the likes of J. M. W. Turner, John Constable…