The Earl of Sandwich

The Earl of Sandwich enjoyed his time at the gaming tables. So much so that he didn’t want to leave his marathon gambling sessions to have a meal. Instead, he had a servant bring him a slice of roast beef between two pieces of bread—a meal he could eat with his hands without having to leave the table. His fellow gamblers found this eccentricity of the Earl’s amusing, but they also soon began to see the logic of it. Supposedly some to them began to tell the waiters to bring them “one like Sandwich.” And thus the now ubiquitous “sandwich” acquired its name.

Lord Sandwich was an interesting character, whose life included numerous Dose-worthy episodes. But it is as the namesake of the sandwich that he is best remembered.

John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, died in London at age 73, on April 30, 1792, two hundred thirty-one years ago today.

By the way, it is often said that Montagu “invented” the sandwich. That is not true. He was certainly not the first person to come up with the idea of making a meal out of two slices of bread with something in between. But he did help popularize the notion in the English-speaking world and he did give it a name. In fact, within a few decades of his death “sandwich” had entered the language not only a noun, but also a verb—meaning to place something between two other things.