Draft:Whitefriars Club
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| Formation | 1868 (inaugural dinner 21 February) |
|---|---|
| Founded at | Radley's Hotel, New Bridge Street, London |
| Type | Literary dining club |
| Purpose | Dining and conversation; talks by invited speakers from literary, cultural and political life |
| Headquarters | Meets at the Savile Club, Brook Street, London |
| Members | Journalists, authors, publishers, lawyers, politicians and others |
| Website | whitefriarsclub |
The Whitefriars Club is a London literary dining club, founded in 1868 by a group of Fleet Street journalists. One of the oldest surviving literary dining clubs in London, it takes its name from the ancient Whitefriars precinct off Fleet Street, once occupied by Carmelite friars, and its members style themselves "Friars".[1][2] Over its history the club has heard after-dinner addresses from figures including Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, G. K. Chesterton and John Buchan.[3][4][5] The club's archives are held by the University of Reading.[1][6]
History
[edit]Foundation
[edit]Towards the end of 1867 a dozen or so journalists who had been dining regularly at Spiers and Pond's restaurant at Ludgate Hill Station resolved to constitute themselves a private club, "where both dinner and conversation could be enjoyed without the disturbing influence of the general public."[1][2] The inaugural dinner was held at Radley's Hotel in New Bridge Street, Blackfriars, on 21 February 1868, and by the club's first annual meeting on 8 January 1869 the membership stood at forty.[1][2]
The name was taken from the old ecclesiastical precinct of Whitefriars—bounded by Fleet Street, New Bridge Street, the Temple and the Thames—formerly the house of the Carmelite ("white") friars and later the notorious sanctuary for debtors known as Alsatia.[1][2] An 1895 profile in The Sketch noted that the club had in fact been christened for the "simple and prosaic reason" that it first met as a corporate body in the Whitefriars neighbourhood, but had long outgrown the patronymic.[7] In 1871 the club moved its meetings to the Mitre Tavern in Fleet Street, and in 1873 elected the journalist Crawford Wilson as its first president.[1]
Victorian and Edwardian years
[edit]On 6 September 1872 the club held a dinner at the Mitre Tavern at which the American humorist Mark Twain spoke, with Ambrose Bierce also present; Twain's speech is printed in Paul Fatout's standard edition of his speaking engagements.[3][4] Twain was elected an honorary member in 1874, and returned on 16 June 1899 to a dinner given by the club in his honour, where the toast was proposed by Louis F. Austin of The Illustrated London News and Twain delivered his much-quoted remarks on the labour of preparing an "impromptu" speech.[8][9] The headnote to the speech in the 1910 Harper edition of Mark Twain's Speeches states that the club "was founded by Dr. Samuel Johnson"—a picturesque impossibility, Johnson having died in 1784, and a claim unsupported by the club's records, which date its foundation to 1868.[8][1]
By the 1890s the club had settled at Anderton's Hotel in Fleet Street, where in July 1890 Oscar Wilde called at the club's rooms and discussed The Picture of Dorian Gray with the Friar Sidney Low, then editor of the St James's Gazette.[10] The first recorded summer "pilgrimage"—an excursion that became an annual tradition—was made to Canterbury on 25 June 1892.[3]
The turn of the century brought a notable run of speakers. Winston Churchill, newly returned from South Africa, addressed the club on "War Correspondence" on 5 October 1900 and later became a member; his fellow Friar Sir John Hammerton recalled Churchill's association with the club in his 1943 memoir Other Things than War.[3][5] Arthur Conan Doyle spoke on "The Art of Fiction" on 11 January 1901, George Gissing attended as a guest of Edward Clodd in 1900, and Bram Stoker spoke on "The State Censorship of Novels" on 18 October 1907.[3] In 1909 the club invited the former American president Theodore Roosevelt to speak; he declined in a letter to the honorary secretary written from Naivasha, British East Africa, during his African expedition.[11] John Buchan addressed the club on "The Press and the War" in January 1917, and interwar speakers included Neville Chamberlain, Lord Curzon, T. P. O'Connor and Walter de la Mare.[3][10]
Later twentieth century to present
[edit]The club suspended its dinners in December 1938, owing to the difficulty of securing speakers on the eve of the Second World War, and did not resume them until January 1950.[3] Its centenary was marked by a feast at the Waldorf Hotel on 28 March 1968, with Sir Alec Douglas-Home as guest of honour; in the same year the committee appealed through The Spectator—which described the Whitefriars as "Fleet Street's oldest literary institution"—for the return of minute books and other records that had gone astray over the club's first hundred years.[3][12] Prince Philip attended the 110th anniversary dinner in March 1978.[3]
Over its long history the club has migrated through a succession of homes, including Anderton's Hotel, Dr Johnson's Buildings, the Waldorf Hotel, the Cock Tavern, the Arts Club, the Athenaeum and the Royal Over-Seas League; since the 1990s it has met at the Savile Club in Brook Street, Mayfair, where it dines eight times a year with an invited speaker.[2] Membership, originally confined to journalists, has broadened to include authors, publishers, lawyers, politicians and members of other professions.[1][2] The club admitted its first woman member, Mary Baum, in February 1997; she became its first woman chairman in 2004.[1] The club's 150th anniversary was celebrated at the Palace of Westminster in February 2018, with an address by Lord Chartres, former Bishop of London.[3]
In 2024 the club, in association with the Society of Authors, established the John Calder Translation Prize, an annual award for literary translation into English named for the publisher John Calder.[13]
Traditions
[edit]Members address one another as "Friar", and the member presiding over each dinner is styled the "Prior of the Day".[1][2] At every dinner the Prior of the Day (or an appointed Friar) reads the club's "cordial", a toast commemorating "the Whitefriars of Old" and extending welcome to the guests of the "Brotherhood"; it alludes to Alsatia, the debtors' sanctuary that once occupied the Whitefriars precinct.[14] The club has long observed the convention that speeches and the discussion following them are not reported, a practice it compares to the Chatham House Rule.[1] Other traditions include the annual summer "pilgrimage", recorded since 1892, and, since 1983, an occasional musical evening known as the "Glee".[3]
Archives
[edit]The club's archive is deposited with the University of Reading Special Collections. It includes minute books, financial papers, membership and event records, member and visitor signature books, records of speeches, scrapbooks and photographs, together with the club's publications: the Whitefriars Journal (1900–1923), The Whitefriars' Chronicles and The Whitefriar newsletter (2004–2019).[1][6] In 2017 the club's committee agreed that papers predating 1975 could be made available to researchers, subject to the club's permission to publish previously unpublished material.[1]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "Whitefriars Club Archive". University of Reading Special Collections. Retrieved 12 June 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "About the Club". The Whitefriars Club. Retrieved 12 June 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Timeline". The Whitefriars Club. Retrieved 12 June 2026.
- 1 2 Fatout, Paul, ed. (2006) [1976]. Mark Twain Speaking. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. pp. 72–73. ISBN 9780877459903.
- 1 2 Hammerton, John (1943). Other Things than War. London: Macdonald. pp. 17–22.
- 1 2 "The Whitefriars Club, dining club". The National Archives Discovery. Retrieved 12 June 2026.
- ↑ "The Whitefriars Club". The Sketch. 1 May 1895. Reproduced on the Whitefriars Club website.
- 1 2 Twain, Mark (1910). "Address at the Dinner Given by the Whitefriars Club in Honor of Mr. Clemens, London". Mark Twain's Speeches. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 380.
- ↑ Fatout, Paul, ed. (2006) [1976]. Mark Twain Speaking. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. p. 327. ISBN 9780877459903.
- 1 2 "Past speakers and events". The Whitefriars Club. Retrieved 12 June 2026.
- ↑ "An invitation to President Theodore Roosevelt". The Whitefriars Club. Retrieved 12 June 2026.
- ↑ "The Whitefriars Club". The Spectator. 29 November 1968. p. 30.
- ↑ "The John Calder Translation Prize". The Whitefriars Club. Retrieved 12 June 2026.
- ↑ "Home". The Whitefriars Club. Retrieved 12 June 2026.
External links
[edit]- Official website
- Whitefriars Club Archive at the University of Reading
Category:1868 establishments in the United Kingdom Category:Clubs and societies in London Category:Dining clubs Category:Organizations established in 1868 Category:Literary societies Category:Fleet Street