Heidegger, it may be added, remained popular with the fashionable world up to his death. He lived at Barn Elms, where the King honoured him with a visit. He bore the reputation of great charity, and died in 1749, “immensely lamented,” aged near ninety.
That White’s Club was a great success from the very first is shown from the old rate-books, where the prosperity of Mrs. White, the proprietress, is reflected. The entries give us three degrees of comparison: At White’s death, positive, “Widow White”; later, comparative, “Mrs. White”; later still, superlative, “Madam White.” The Bumble of the period was evidently impressed by her prosperity, and by the fine company which met at her house.
Madam White’s, indeed, was never an ordinary coffee-house, a proof of which is that the usual charge of a penny made for entrance into such places appears to have been increased. In earlier days, when it was a chocolate-house, Steele (though he never became a member of the club) was a constant frequenter, for in 1716 he lived opposite. In the first number of the Tatler, published in 1709, he informs his readers that “all accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment shall be under the article of White’s Chocolate House,” while Will’s was to supply the poetry, and the Grecian the learning. We find, accordingly, many of the early numbers of the Tatler dated from White’s.
Madam White continued at the chocolate-house until some time between 1725 and 1729 (the exact year is uncertain, as the rate-books for those years are missing), and she probably left the place with a fortune.
At Mrs. White’s demise, Arthur became proprietor, and largely added to the premises. These were burnt down in 1733, when he removed to Gaunt’s Coffee-house till White’s had been rebuilt. His son, Robert Arthur, appears as proprietor of the new house in 1736.
During Robert Arthur’s life the most fashionable frequenters of his chocolate-house became more and more exclusive, and the proprietor soon found that catering for its members, all men of means and leisure, was the chief part of his business, and more lucrative than the custom of the general public. His interests, of course, lay in the direction of meeting the wishes of his patrons, and in consequence of this members of the public were eventually excluded. White’s Chocolate-house was thus transformed into the private and exclusive society since known as “White’s.”
Though White’s was at this time reputed to be very exclusive, and although certain qualifications were indispensable, some of the members were drawn from a quite unaristocratic class.
In Davies’s “Life of Garrick” is the following curious reference to Colley Cibber as a member of White’s: “Colley, we are told, had the honour to be a member of the great club at White’s; and so I suppose might any other man who wore good clothes, and paid his money when he lost it. But on what terms did Cibber live with this society? Why, he feasted most sumptuously, as I have heard his friend Victor say, with an air of triumphant exultation, with Mr. Arthur and his wife, and gave a trifle for his dinner. After he had dined, when the club-room door was opened, and the Laureate was introduced, he was saluted with loud and joyous acclamation of ‘O King Coll! Come in, King Coll!’ and ‘Welcome, welcome. King Colley!’ and this kind of gratulation, Mr. Victor thought, was very gracious and very honourable.”
The present White’s Club dates from 1755, in which year Robert Arthur removed with the Young and Old Clubs which had met at his house—350 members in all—to the “Great House” in St. James’s Street, which, though much altered, is still White’s. He had purchased this building from Sir Whistler Webster. One of its earlier occupants had been the Countess of Northumberland, whom Walpole mentions as one of the last to practise the unmaimed rites of the old peerage. “When she went out,” says he, “a footman, bareheaded, walked on each side of her coach, and a second coach with her women attended her. I think, too, that Lady Suffolk told me that her granddaughter-in-law, the Duchess of Somerset, never sat down before her without her leave to do so.”
In course of time the management of the club came into the hands of Martindale, a man whose name was connected with high play, of which he frequently figured as an organizer.