Club

I

Introduction

Club, association of people who meet periodically, for sociability or to share a common interest, especially in politics, a profession, or some form of recreation. The term also denotes the premises used for such activities. Some clubs are proprietary, that is, they are owned and run for profit by an individual or individuals. Membership of a club may be limited in number or selective in nature. New members are usually elected by vote of the membership after a committee of members has first passed on their applications.

Clubs existed in the ancient world, particularly in Greece and Rome, where they were formed for religious purposes or for promoting the mutual interests of people following the same trade. Some Greek and Roman clubs took an active part in politics. Other antecedents of the modern club were the religious orders, colleges, and trade guilds established in the Middle Ages. It was in 17th-century England, however, that clubs as they are known today developed.

II

United Kingdom

The most famous of prototypes was the Bread Street Club of Elizabethan times, reputedly founded by Sir Walter Raleigh. It met at the Mermaid Tavern in Bread Street, London; among its members were William Shakespeare, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, and other literary notables of the time. Another well-known club of that period was the Apollo, founded by Ben Jonson; it met at the Devil Tavern in London.

The renowned coffeehouses of London, established in the mid-17th century, were natural clubrooms, dispensing refreshments and becoming centres where newspapers were read and literary and political opinions exchanged. Early in the 18th century the number of such clubs in London greatly increased. Two famous periodicals of the time, the Tatler and the Spectator, give accounts of some of the clubs, among them the Green Ribbon Club; the Scriblerus Club, founded by the satirist Jonathan Swift; and the Kit-Kat Club, which numbered among its members Joseph Addison, the dukes of Marlborough and Devonshire, Sir Robert Walpole, and William Congreve. The most famous club established in the 18th century, however, was the Literary Club, or The Club, founded in 1764 by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Samuel Johnson. The Club, which met at the Turk's Head, London, and which is still in existence, had among its early members Edward Gibbon, James Boswell, and Oliver Goldsmith.

Modern London is still unique in its abundance of clubs. Far from mere meeting rooms, they are dining and residential establishments, frequently with extensive library facilities for their members. Among them are the Carlton (1832), whose membership requires allegiance to the Conservative party. Nearly all Conservative prime ministers, including Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Heath, and John Major, have been members of the club; the Reform (1832), founded by supporters of the First Reform Act and used by Jules Verne as the setting for the opening chapter of his novel, Around the World in Eighty Days; and the Athenaeum (1824), the most intellectually elite of all London clubs, whose members include prime ministers, Cabinet ministers, Archbishops, Bishops, and major literary figures. Among other famous clubs still in existence are the Garrick (1831), whose membership is made up of lawyers, journalists, and actors, and the Travellers (1819). The latter is a social and non-political club, originally founded as a reunion point for gentlemen who had travelled abroad. Today it attracts Foreign Office officials and diplomats. With the exception of the Reform club, which has since 1981 been open to women, membership of these and many other clubs remains exclusively male. However, new clubs open to both women and men continue to be set up both in London and in other major British cities, and attract a lively membership. Best known among these is the Groucho (1985) in London, popular among journalists and television and advertising executives.

In the 19th century the British established clubs in their colonies and dominions, including North America, where the earliest American social club, the Fish House, was founded in 1732. Many of these clubs, notably in India, have survived to the present.

III

Europe

While the social club, per se, never found wide acceptance in continental Europe (an exception being the Jockey Club, founded in Paris in 1834), political clubs have flourished in Germany, Italy, Spain, and especially France. The most notable political clubs of the French Revolution were the Club des Jacobins, the Club des Cordeliers (Grey Friars Club), and the Club des Feuillants (Bernardine Monks Club); all were suppressed by Napoleon in 1799. In Germany, Scandinavia, and elsewhere, clubs whose membership is both exclusive and often expensive, combine social and sporting interests, and are seen as useful places for fostering business contacts.