THE ST. JAMES’ CLUB (FORMERLY COVENTRY HOUSE) From a Water-colour Drawing by W. Walcot               The Author wishes to acknowledge the valuable assistance he has received from several Secretaries of Clubs mentioned in this volume, particularly Captain Charles Percy Smith , who supplied him with information of considerable interest. His best thanks are also due to the Committee of the St. James’ Club for having courteously allowed him to reproduce the water-colour drawing shown in the Frontisp

The modern club, with its luxuries and comforts, has its origin in the tavern and coffee-house of a long-past age. The resorts in question have long since entirely changed their character, although they were once important features of London life, and were used by all classes for purposes of conviviality and conversation. The appellation “club” seems to have come into use at the time when coffee-houses began to be popular in London. The first notable London club, of course, was the Mermaid, in B

Many curiously-named clubs existed in the past. Addison, for instance, speaking of the clubs of his time, mentions several the names of which were probably merely humorous exaggerations. Names such as the Mum Club, the Ugly Club, can hardly be considered to have been in actual use. Real clubs were the Lying Club, for which untruthfulness was supposed to be an indispensable qualification; the Odd Fellows’ Club; the Humbugs (which met at the Blue Posts, in Covent Garden); the Samsonic Society; the

The original clubland of the West End was St. James’s Street, where the first clubs originated from coffee-houses. In this historic thoroughfare—the “dear old Street of Clubs and Cribs,” as Frederick Locker called it—most of the sociable institutions founded many decades ago still flourish. Such are White’s, Arthur’s, Brooks’s, the Cocoa-tree, and Boodle’s, the latter of which, after passing through a crisis which came near closing its doors for ever, now once again flourishes as of yore. This c

At one time considerable rivalry existed between White’s and Brooks’s. Great festivities took place all over the country in the spring of 1789, and both White’s and Brooks’s gave balls, which seem to have occasioned much unpleasant feeling between the party of the Prince of Wales and that of the Court. Pitt was a member of both clubs (having been elected to Brooks’s in 1781, on the proposal of Fox), but he had a decided partiality for White’s. The Prince detested White’s as the chosen club of Pi

Amongst the changes which, during the last thirty years, have transformed the West End of London, one of the most salient has been the great increase in the number of clubs. Palatial buildings, each capable of accommodating hundreds of members, now occupy a very great portion of Pall Mall and Piccadilly. Although in other days the latter was by no means a very clubbable thoroughfare, it now, at one end at least, consists largely of clubs, most of them, however, differing widely from those of an

The transformation of the West End of London has entailed the destruction of numbers of the old box-like Georgian houses, and when the demand for new clubs arose, the quaint little shops in Pall Mall and St. James’s Street—almost the last survival of which is Lock’s hat-shop—were gradually demolished, in order to make way for huge edifices of palatial appearance. New political clubs, new professional clubs, new social clubs, sprang into existence, till what was a luxury for the few became a comp

Amongst the changes in club-life in London, perhaps the most striking is the almost total cessation of the late sittings in which members formerly indulged. Various causes have contributed to make people in the West End of London keep earlier hours, of which the most notable is that the number of unoccupied men, who once formed a large proportion of those living in what is called the fashionable part of the town, has shrunk to a very small number, if it has not altogether ceased to exist. In oth

Though, as has before been said, the majority of West End clubs have been obliged by force of circumstances to relax the exclusiveness which was formerly one of their most salient features, a few still manage to retain that social prestige which was the pride of quite a number in the past. A conspicuous instance is the Travellers’, a club which from the days of its foundation has always been somewhat capricious in electing members. The list of public men who have been blackballed here is conside

About the most valuable artistic possession owned by any London club is the fine set of Flemish tapestries in the drawing-room of the National Club, 1 Whitehall Gardens. These were acquired with the club-house in 1845 from Lord Ailsa, who had bought them in Belgium shortly after Waterloo. The price paid was very moderate—£200—and at the present time the tapestries in question are in all probability worth over ten times as much. A curious and interesting feature at the National is the building wh

Of the many convivial dining clubs which once abounded in London few now survive, though the famous and venerable Dilettanti Society happily still flourishes. Its dinners are held at the Grafton Galleries, and certain quaint old usages are still maintained. A member who speaks of the Society as “the club” has to pay some petty fine, whilst the secretary when reading the minutes puts on bands. The presence of these somewhat ecclesiastical additions to costume in one of the beautiful portraits bel

Though various London clubs possess a certain number of pictures and objets d’art , the Garrick stands alone in the ownership of a unique collection. This, however, has been described so frequently that any detailed treatment would be superfluous. The Garrick was originally started at 35 King Street, Covent Garden, in 1831, “for the purpose of bringing together the ‘patrons’ of the drama and its professors, and also for offering literary men a rendezvous.” The club-house had been a family hotel.