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Sandwich was a word by 1762
Gibbon's cold meat
Gibbon wrote that gentlemen at London's Cocoa Tree Club were eating a bit of cold meat or a sandwich. It is one of the earliest recorded references to the food. John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who was born in 1718 and died in 1792, was about 44 years old at the time, still serving in government and still a public figure.
A word in daily use
The word was in everyday use while the earl was alive, so the link between his name and the food formed in his own lifetime.
Grosley's account
A few years later, the famous gambling story reached print. A French traveler, Pierre Jean Grosley, wrote of an English minister who spent long hours at the gaming table eating slices of beef tucked between toasted bread. The earliest sources cannot prove that one dinner happened exactly that way, and some details repeated today appear nowhere in the original account. The meal became fashionable and took the minister's name.
How did a chocolate house become a club?
The Cocoa Tree began in the 1690s as a chocolate house on St James's Street in London, when drinking chocolate was a fashionable luxury. Over the following decades it turned into a private club associated with Tory gentlemen. Members used it for conversation, gossip, and gambling. Gibbon, the historian, was a member and mentioned it in his journal.
How did a French traveler's book spread the story?
Pierre Jean Grosley visited London in 1765 and published his account in French in 1770 under the title Londres. An English translation by Thomas Nugent followed in 1772. That gave the tale of the minister and his beef a printed audience well beyond London.
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