At the turn of the 20th century the manager of the hotel was Emile Bruvet an Irish born son of a French immigrant. Emile’s father was Charles Adolphus Desire Bruvet who had travelled to live in Ireland and married Emile’s mother Elize Zeurcher (also French) in 1860. Emile was born in County Galway in 1862 but was the only one of Charles’s children to be born there. Shortly after his birth the family moved and settled in Cambridge where Charles gained a reputation as a talented cook. He worked as college cook for Trinity College, Downing College and St John’s College, before opening his own establishment; The Prince of Wales Hotel. Not content with running his own hotel, Charles wanted to be involved in the running of Cambridge and so when, in 1878, a vacancy came up on the Town Council he put himself forward and acted as a councillor for two years as a representative of the Market Ward. Sadly, two years previously this Charles' wife and Emile’s mother Elize died and in order to help care for the children and run the hotel, Charles’ sister Augustine moved in with them. She was also there to assist when Charles himself died in 1883. She continued to live with the siblings when they moved to Uxbridge near London where Emile, worked as a cook and confectioner; so, carrying on the family business. In the 1891 census the family are living in Uxbridge with Emile as head. In 1894, Augustine died, and Emile married Augusta Kathleen Robinson; a young widow; at Holy trinity Church in Brompton. They moved to Whitby shortly after their marriage and took over the running of the Royal Hotel. They remained as joint managers until 1901. Emile was a Londoner at heart and the rest of his family had remained in the London area and so by the 1911 census he had moved back and was in place as manager of the Angel Islington with Kathleen as bar superintendent. This census also reveals that during their marriage they had no children.
The Angel, Islington is famous because it is one of the addresses on the British version of the Monopoly board. Notably, it is the only building specifically named. At the time Emile was manager the Islington area was quite high class, but by the time the Monopoly board was devised in 1935, it had become less and so its place on the board commands a low rent. During the 1980s Islington was gentrified and so now properties on the area are quite sought after and therefore expensive. The building that housed the new Angel Hotel was completed in 1903 but closed as a hotel in 1921 when it was acquired by J. Lyons and Co, to be used as a restaurant. At the time of the completion of the building the brewers called it “the widest known hostelry in the world”. The building is now offices and a bank, but the façade remains the same. The building is grade II listed.
An inn called the Angel has been in the same site for hundreds of years and is mentioned in Charles Dicken’s novel Oliver Twist as the “Place where London began in earnest”. In 1827 the artist James Pollard painted “The Royal mail Coaches for the North Leaving the Angel Islington”. In 1790 the novelist Thomas Paine is thought to have begun writing “Rights of Man”.
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