London’s Clubland

If you want a useful clue to the tastes, personality and status of an Englishman of over forty, ask him which is his club. England is very small; nearly every established Englishman has matters of a business or a social nature to transact in London. A club is a necessity for him. Very likely he has two or three. Soames Forsyte “belonged to two clubs, ‘the Connoisseur’ which he put on his cards and seldom visited and ‘the Remove’ which he frequented.” Very few men nowadays put their club on their cards; a great many, indeed, do not have calling cards at all, but the distinction is still valid. My brother Evelyn and myself had at various points along the course three clubs in common—the Beefsteak, Pratt’s and the Savile, but the basic difference that there was between us is indicated by the fact that his main club was White’s, while mine is the Athenaeum. Both are “pillars of the Establishment”; but whereas White’s is fashionable and Tory, the Athenaeum is academic and unpolitical. I feel more at home in the one, Evelyn was happier in the other.

My pocket diary lists the addresses and telephone numbers of 38 principal London clubs. There are Service and University clubs; there are political clubs like the Carlton and the Reform. The Caledonian is obviously Scottish; the Travellers and the East India and Sports cater particularly for those who have spent a large part of their life abroad. Diplomats go to the St. James. There is the Turf for the racing man. The stage patronizes the Eccentric, the Garrick and the Savage. Novelists who like to think of themselves as centipedes with a foot in a hundred different worlds, scatter themselves down the list. No club is exclusively one thing or another; which is why many men have several clubs.

AW

About the Author

Alec Waugh

If you want a useful clue to the tastes, personality and status of an Englishman of over forty, ask him which is his club. England is very small; nearly every established Englishman has matters of a business or a social nature to transact in London. A club is a necessity for him. Very likely he has two or three. Soames Forsyte “belonged to two clubs, ‘the Connoisseur’ which he put on his cards and seldom visited and ‘the Remove’ which he frequented.” Very few men nowadays put their club on their cards; a great many, indeed, do not have calling cards at all, but the distinction is still valid. My brother Evelyn and myself had at various points along the course three clubs in common—the Beefsteak, Pratt’s and the Savile, but the basic difference that there was between us is indicated by the fact that his main club was White’s, while mine is the Athenaeum. Both are “pillars of the Establishment”; but whereas White’s is fashionable and Tory, the Athenaeum is academic and unpolitical. I feel more at home in the one, Evelyn was happier in the other.

My pocket diary lists the addresses and telephone numbers of 38 principal London clubs. There are Service and University clubs; there are political clubs like the Carlton and the Reform. The Caledonian is obviously Scottish; the Travellers and the East India and Sports cater particularly for those who have spent a large part of their life abroad. Diplomats go to the St. James. There is the Turf for the racing man. The stage patronizes the Eccentric, the Garrick and the Savage. Novelists who like to think of themselves as centipedes with a foot in a hundred different worlds, scatter themselves down the list. No club is exclusively one thing or another; which is why many men have several clubs.