Fox once played cards with Fitzpatrick at Brooks’s from ten o’clock at night till near six o’clock the next morning, a waiter standing by to tell them “whose deal it was,” they being too sleepy to know.
The precise circumstances which led to the foundation of the Fox Club are rather obscure, the first recorded dinner having taken place in February 1829, when twenty-three members were present, though “Fox Dinners” seem to have been held previous to that date.
Until 1843 the Fox Club met at the Clarendon, but in that year, on an application signed by sixteen members of the Fox Club, a rule was passed granting permission to that body to use the great room at Brooks’s for their meetings. Of these, the first always takes place on the Thursday following the meeting of Parliament, the second and third as may be fixed by the club in the course of the session, and the fourth at Greenwich in July.
No speeches are allowed, and only the four following toasts are given, without “note or comment”:
1. “In the memory of Charles James Fox.”
2. “Earl Grey and the Reform Bill.”
3. “The memory of Lord Holland.”
This third toast was added by unanimous resolution on April 24, 1841, and on June 5 following, on motion previously given by Sir Robert Adair and Mr. Clive, £200 were voted from the funds of the club towards the monument proposed to be erected to his memory, now just inside the railings of Holland House, on the Hammersmith Road.
On the pedestal of the monument in question are inscribed the following lines:
“Nephew of Fox, and friend of Grey,