CLUBLAND

See Also: COFFEEHOUSES Pall Mall

Location: Pall Mall, SW1Y 5ER

The Army & Navy Club

The Army & Navy Club became known as The Rag. One evening, Captain William Duff of the 23^rd Fusiliers arrived late for supper and found that there was so little available to eat that he extended the informal name to The Rag & Famish.

Location: 36-39 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5JN (orange, blue)

Website: https://therag.co.uk

Harpic

While serving as a brigade commander in West Germany, the army officer Bernard Gordon Lennox (1932-2017) was nicknamed Harpic by his men. This was because the lavatory cleaner was being promoted with the advertising slogan Clean round the bend. (The major-general was a member of the club.)

The Athenaeum

The Athenaeum was founded in 1824 to provide for the needs of scientific and literary men and artists . The club's original members included the politician the 4^th Earl of Aberdeen, the writer and politician John Wilson Croker,¹ the scientist Humphry Davy, the painter Sir Thomas Lawrence, and Henry Crabb Robinson. William Makepeace Thackeray wrote several of his novels in the establishment's library.

In the 20^thC the club had a reputation for being clerical and cerebral in character.

Location: 107 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5ER² (purple, turquoise)

Website: www.athenaeumclub.co.uk

¹. It was Wilson who first used conservatism as a political term.

². In taxi slang the Athenaeum is referred to both as Bishopsgate and The Spit & Cough.

The Beefsteak Club

Beefsteak only lunchtime.

The Sublime Society of Beefsteaks

Location: 9 Irving Street, WC2H 7AH (orange, brown)

Boodles

Location: 28 St James's Street, SW1A 1HJ (blue, turquoise)

Website: www.boodles.org

Brooks'ss

Brooks s was founded in 1764 by William Almack in his tavern at No. 49 Pall Mall. In 1778 the club moved to St James's Street where it came under the management of William Brooks. In the late 18^thC some of the establishment's members entertained themselves by gambling for very high stakes.

By then the club had emerged as the principal Whig club (White's was the principal Tory one). The building does not have a house number. The 1^st Duke of Wellington was a Tory. Some of club s members may have chosen to regard his decision to allow his townhouse Apsley House to be termed as No. 1 London as having been a political manoeuvre that was not to be pandered to.

Location: (No. 60) St James's Street, SW1A 1LN (blue, orange)

See Also: ENTERTAINMENT, DISAPPEARED Almack's Assembly Rooms; STREET FURNITURE House Numbers

Website: www.brooksclub.org

The Carlton Club

During the Trafalgar Square riot of 1886 the gentlemen s clubs were attacked. At the Carlton a member baited the rioters by holding his nose. Club servants threw crusts and matchboxes down at the rioters.

In 2008 the Carlton Club changed its rules to allow women full equal status.

Location: 69 St James's Street, SW1A 1PJ (orange, grey)

Website: www.carltonclub.co.uk

The Cavalier & Guards Club

The Cavalier & Guards Club

Location: 127 Piccadilly, W1J 7PX (orange, brown)

Website: www.cavgdsclub.co.uk

Early Eighteenth-Century Clubs

In part, the gentlemen's clubs of St James's developed from the early 18^thC fashion for gentlemen to gather together in clubs or societies for a range of political and/or leisure activities.

See Also: FREEMASONRY

Hell-fire Clubs

During the 1710s some fashionable aristocratic young men gathered in gangs called Mohocks that engaged in an anti-social behaviour. These gangs developed into organised drinking clubs that sought to shock non-members. These clubs lampooned the improving societies that had sprung up. The first one to known as a Hell-Fire club was founded by the Duke of Wharton. Its activities included reading the works of Lucretius, playing cards on a Sunday, and eating a pigeon pie that they dubbed Holy Ghost pie. It was no such a group of satanists as of bigoted Anglicans who mocked Roman Catholicism for what they believed to be its hypocrisy and corruption.¹ In contemporary slang prostitutes were known as nuns and madams as abbesses.

The best-known Hell-Fire club was the Knights of St Francis, which was set up by Sir Francis Dashwood in 1751. The notoriety of these Medmenham Friars stemmed from one of its members, John Wilkes, falling out with Dashwood. He chose to exaggerate their activities in a particularly lurid manner. His tales found literary form in Charles Johnstone's novel Chrysal (1760).

Location: The George & Vulture, 3 Castle Court, EC3V 9DL. The establishment was used my members of the Hell-fire Club. (blue, brown)

¹. Wharton was to convert to Roman Catholicism.

East India, Devonshire, Sports & Public Schools Club

The East India United Services Club was established in 1849 to provide a London club for retired officers of the East India Company and for those serving officers who were on leave in Britain. In 1862 the club bought the freehold of No. 16 St James's Square. During the 20^thC a number of less foresighted bodies amalgamated with it, ultimately generating it its present name - the East India, Devonshire, Sports & Public Schools Club.

Location: 16 St James's Square, SW1Y 4LH (orange, brown)

See Also: PRISONS, DISAPPEARED The Fleet Prison, Fanny Hill; TRADING COMPANIES The East India Company

Website: www.eastindiaclub.co.uk

The Garrick Club

The Garrick Club is a gentleman's club that was founded in 1831. It takes its name from the actor David Garrick (1717-1779) and has long had strong associations with the theatrical profession. However, its membership is now in large part drawn from the media and the law. The Garrick's tie is a distinctive pink and green.

There is a table in The Garrick that is always empty. No one ever sits at it. It was where Philby and Maclean were sitting when they were tipped off that the net was closing around them. They fled.

According to the City of London corporate relations consultant Brian Dowling (1926-2013), one evening in 1969, at the bar of The Garrick club, he fell into conversation with Judge Melford Stevenson. The former inquired of the latter Had a good day? The judge had just sentenced the Kray brothers. He replied: I ll say so. Those bastards only spoke two truths during the whole trial. One was that their defending counsel was a slob. The other was that I was totally biased against them.

The actor Donald Sinden (1923-2014) was a matin e idol who developed into being a highly respected Shakespearean actor. The final years of his career were largely focussed upon television sit-coms. Through the 1980s and into the early 1990s he starred in Never The Twain, which was about two feuding antiques dealers. The other one was played by Windsor Davies (1930-2019), a working-class Welsh actor who had become a nationally-known figure through playing the leather-lunged Battery Sergeant-Major Williams in It Ain t Half Hot Mum (1974-81), a Second World War comedy about a motley theatrical troupe that was stationed in India. When Sinden heard that Davies was to be his colleague, he had declared that he had never heard of him and then invited him to dine at The Garrick. The Welshman accepted the invitation. He reciprocated by offering to invite Sinden to join with him at the Aberdare Working Men's Club. He did not receive a reply.

Location: 15-17 Garrick Street, WC2E 9AY (orange, yellow)

See Also: CHILDREN's LITERATURE Winnie The Pooh; THEATRE RELATED

Website: www.garrickclub.co.uk

The Groucho Club

The Groucho Club is a media watering hole. It was founded in 1985. It came into being because a number of figures in the publishing and media worlds wished to have somewhere convenient where they could entertain their clients and one another. The club took its name from Groucho Marx, the London-born, American comedian and wit, who once quipped that he would not join any club that would have him as a member.

A cluster of imitator establishments sprang up in the streets around it.

Location: 45 Dean Street, W1D 4QB (turquoise, grey)

Website: www.thegrouchoclub.com

The Oxford & Cambridge Club

There is a story that in the 19^thC a military club was closed for building work to be carried out. Its members were allowed to use the facilities of the Oxford & Cambridge Club. Two officers sank into armchairs and admired the room they were in. One remarked to the other These middle-class fellows know how to do themselves well. In a nearby chair a man was reading a newspaper. He slowly lowered it, revealing a disdainful look. He was the 1^st Duke of Wellington - the Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

In 1994 the Oxford & Cambridge Club banished Misty, the club cat, after being told to do so by an environmental health officer.

Location: 71-77 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5HD (blue, purple)

See Also: CATS Working Cats

Website: http://oxfordandcambridgeclub.co.uk

Pratts

Pratt s has several hundred members but only fourteen of them can dine there at a time.

Location: 14 Park Place, SW1A 1LP (red, orange)

The Reform Club

The Great Reform Act of 1832 reformed the British electoral system, thereby opening the way for modern Parliamentary democracy to develop in the country. The measure was created and championed by members of the Whig Party. The Club was founded by Whigs in 1836.

The Club is no longer politically aligned.

Location: 104 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5EW (orange, brown)

See Also: RIOTS The Piccadilly Riot of 1886; A SOUFFL CHEF OF SUBSTANCE

Website: www.reformclub.com

P.C. Johnson

John Johnson was a community policeman who never rose above the rank of P.C. because he wished to stay working with members of the public. He was known to thousands of people in and around Battersea. He was named as the Metropolitan Community Policeman of the Year in both 1994 and 2002. Off-duty, the University of Oxford graduate was a member of The Reform Club.

See Also: THE POLICE

The Royal Automobile Club

The Automobile Club of Great Britain & Ireland was founded in 1897 by Charles Harrington Moore and Frederick Richard Simms. The Club became a body that lobbied to influence the character of motoring legislation. King Edward VII s interest in cars led to it being allowed to change its name to the Royal Automobile Club. In 1905 the Club organised the first Tourist Trophy (T.T.) race and became the governing body for motor sport in the United Kingdom. Six years later it moved into what had been the War Office in Pall Mall. In 1926 the Club organised the first British Grand Prix at the Brooklands motoring circuit in Surrey.

In 1929 Scotland Yard convened a meeting with interested parties about how the locomotion motor vehicles should be regulated. The Royal Automobile Club asked that main road priority should be instituted (the Automobile Association opposed the idea). This was done. The development abandoned Common Law principal of equal rights and equal responsibilities. The priority system interrupted the natural negotiation of social beings to take turns. Traffic light interrupts the problems that have been created by a false priority.

In 1930 the Club initiated the Commemoration Run from London to Brighton. The R.A.C. developed into the St James's club that had the largest membership. Some refer to it as The Chauffeurs Arms.

Upon one occasion the writer Muriel Nissel (n e Griffiths) (1921-2010) went to The R.A.C. for a swim. The author was refused entry to the club because she was wearing jeans. She placed her towel around her waist, removed her trousers, and then represented herself to the doorman who admitted her to the building.

In 1998 the Royal Automobile Club sold R.A.C. Motoring Services to a private company. The 12,065 members of the Club each received a payment of 35,000. At the time, the annual cost of membership was between 454 and 623.

Location: 89 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5HS (orange, grey)

See Also: CARS; COACHES Coach Precedence

Website: www.royalautomobileclub.co.uk

The Royal Air Force Club

Location: 128 Piccadilly, W1J 7PY (orange, turquoise)

Website: www.rafclub.org.uk

The Royal Thames Yacht Club

In 1775 the Duke of Cumberland, a younger brother of King George III, provided a silver cup that was to be awarded to the winner of a race between sailing vessels never let out for hire over a course on the Thames that ran from Westminster Bridge to Putney and back. This led to the formation of the Cumberland Fleet, a sailing club. Through a number of guises, the Fleet evolved to become the present-day Royal Thames Yacht Club.

In 1923 the Club acquired No. 60 Knightsbridge. The present building dates from 1961. A ship's mast stands in front of it.

Location: 60 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7LF (red, turquoise)

See Also: NAUTICAL; ROWING The Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race

Website: www.royalthames.com

The Travellers Club

The Travellers Club was founded in 1819 to provide facilities both for people who travelled abroad and for foreign diplomats who had been stationed to London.

Location: 106 Pall Mall, SW1Y 5EP (purple, brown)

See Also: EMBASSIES; EXPLORATION; WHITEHALL DEPARTMENTS The Foreign & Commonwealth Office

Website: www.thetravellersclub.org.uk

Libyan Thaw

In 2003 the Libyan regime of Colonel Gaddafi entered into a process that was intended to enable it to be brought in from the cold . This included revealing and ending its weapons of mass destruction programme and passing on detailed intelligence material about al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups. The key Libyan negotiator was Musa Kousa, a former head of the country's diplomatic mission in London. He had been dubbed The envoy of death . Foreign Office and M.I.6 representatives conducted some of their negotiations with him at the Travellers .

See Also: EMBASSIES Libyan People's Bureau, Yvonne Fletcher

Never A Dull Moment

Sir Jack Leslie 4^th Bt. (1916-2016), a cousin of Churchill, was a member of The Travellers who owned an estate in County Monaghan. In 1986, after many years of living in Rome, he returned to live at Castle Leslie, the family seat. He had never had any interest in going to nightclubs when young. In his early eighties he visited a local one in Carrickmacross and found that it was very much to his liking. He soon became a frequent nightclubber, travelling internationally in order to go to particular nightclubs. He would dance wearing a Tam O Shanter. The Travellers was his base when going to London nightclubs such as the Ministry of Sound and the Hanover Grand. He lived to be almost 100.

Talleyrand

In 1792 Talleyrand (1754-1838) undertook his first diplomatic mission to London. He advocated to the French Revolutionary regime that it should pursue a non-aggressive, liberal foreign policy.

In 1830 Talleyrand was appointed the French Ambassador and charged with rebuilding Anglo-French relations. He became a popular figure in Britain. The Travellers Club installed a special handrail at its entrance to help him climb its front steps.

Location: 21 Hanover Square, W1S 1JW. Talleyrand s home.

White'ss

In 1693 an Italian, who used the name Francis White, opened White's Chocolate House in St James's Street. White's became a b te noire of the satirist the Rev Jonathan Swift. Within it, an inner club emerged, the members of which became famed for their willingness to gamble upon the outcome of almost anything.

On 8 February and 8 March 1750 London experienced earthquakes. The members of White's immediately responded to the first event by laying stales on whether it had been an earthquake or the explosion of a powder-mine.

The Arthur family succeeded the Whites as the club's managers. In 1755 Robert Arthur bought Nos. 37-38 St James's Street. The chocolate house business ceased trading and the club moved into the new premises.

With the advent of the French Revolution in 1789 the club's membership became politicised. The Whig politician Charles James Fox and his supporters withdrew from White's to Brooks's, while White s remaining members supported Pitt the Younger and his Tory government. Following the Tories electoral defeat at the 1831 general election, the Tory-supporting Carlton Club was founded. This had the effect of depoliticising White's.

The 1953 coronation was televised and watched in White's. The image appeared of the Queen of Tonga, who was physically tall and obese, and her male companion, who was very small. The commentary identified the monarch but not the man. One member of enquired of another who the man was. Her lunch , came the reply. The remark was soon attributed to the actor and writer Noel Coward. He swiftly concluded that it would judicious to cancel the trip that he had been planning to make to the island.

Location: 37-38 St James's Street, SW1A IJG (blue, purple)

See Also: TAILORS Beau Brummell

David Backhouse 2024