Palaces of Power by Stephen Hoare
the area's growing reputation as a premium shopping district. Wealthy individuals patronising the St James’s shops and warehouses might order goods such as medicines, tea, coffee, haberdashery, fashionable clothes, boots, hats, sporting guns, clocks, and even optical instruments which were then parcelled and dispatched to their country estates by mail coach.
A society of Sober Citizens, who frequent a Coffee-House to read the News and smoke their Pipes peaceably
Precise numbers are hard to pin down but male sociability revolved around a common social and intellectual bond. This is still the hallmark of the modern members' club.
An unrestricted press, the coffee-men argued, threatened the unwritten rules of social conduct.
The pamphlet went on to accuse coffee-men of being low bred, unintelligent and therefore unsuitable gatekeepers of information in what was emerging as a privileged public sphere. Customers, they argued, were better off trusting to the judgement of a professional news writer than to the dull Comprehension of an illiterate Coffee-man.
Many of the original members were men of taste who had formed impressive libraries and collections of classical art and antiquities. The bibliophile Roxburghe Club, for example, was formed following the acquisition of the Duke of Roxburghe’s library and is still in existence today.
In 1807, after a dinner party hosted at the Brighton Pavilion, the Prince of Wales asked his guests, Beau Brummel, Henry Mildmay, Henry Pierrepoint, Sir Philip Francis and Sir Thomas Stepney what the food was like at the St James’s clubs. Stepney replied describing ‘ … the eternal joints, or beef-steaks, the boiled fowl with oyster sauce, and an apple tart – this is what we have, sir at our clubs, and very monotonous fare it is.’
Dandyism was an act of defiance – a celebration, in effect, of having survived.[After the 1st World War]
The new generation of clubs reflected high ideals and aspiration. In the post Napoleonic era, clubhouses became grander and more imposing.
political clubs provided a counterweight to Parliament, helping consolidate power in the hands of the ruling elite.
To be a member of a club with its set of rules governing social conduct was to be accepted as a gentleman.
The novelist and gossip columnist Beverley Nichols describes his typical 1920s evening attire: … waistcoat by Hawes and Curtis of the Piccadilly Arcade, silk hat by Lock in St James’s Street, monk shoes by Fortnum and Mason of Piccadilly, crystal and diamond links by Boucheron … gold cigarette case by Asprey of Bond Street, a drop of Rose Geranium on my handkerchief from the ancient shop of Floris in Jermyn Street.
[In WW2] The real issue, however, was not basic cooking ingredients but the indispensable luxuries like vintage clarets, brandies and port stored in club cellars. As soon as France was overrun it became obvious that stocks would have to be conserved as no one knew when they might be able to resume purchasing vintages from the continent.
Members are a mix of investment bankers, entrepreneurs, aristocrats and political grandees.