London Clubs: Their History & Treasures

by Ralph Nevill

The resignation of members disappointed at the failure of their candidate is unreasonable, for a club is in reality a republic, where everyone is equal, and no one has any right to level a pistol at the heads of his fellow-members, or of his committee, whilst saying: “Vote for my candidate, or I will leave the club.” Such an act is but a revolutionary protest against the equality of club-life. If an influential or popular member supports some candidate, the latter has the advantage of the influence of his support, but there the preference should end. The question really is not whether a particular candidate deserves or does not deserve to be admitted, but whether the club chooses to elect him, and anything beyond this is a breach of those principles which conduce to the prosperity of clubland.

The best method of filling up vacancies in the membership of a club would really be selection rather than election, and there is no valid reason why such a method of recruiting the membership of clubs should not generally prevail. Were such a reasonable system in vogue, no one would be submitted to the barbarous mortification of being rejected. As things are now, anyone who has obtained a reputation is bound to make enemies, and the more widely he is known, the more enemies he is certain to have. Indeed, a prominent individual has often a very bad chance of being elected under the system generally observed, an absurdity emphasized by the fact that the late Mr. Gladstone was once rejected for the club at Biarritz.

Anyone whose life has been passed amidst publicity must have offended many. Some hate him merely because they happen never to have met him, and others because they have done so. Others hate him because their friends do, and others, again, disapprove of him merely on political grounds. It is, indeed, impossible to enumerate the variety of motives which cause people to hate each other with reason, and even without reason. This being so, one may well doubt the expediency of compelling men to undergo the disgrace of being rejected for a club, according to the system which at present prevails. As matters stand now, a candidate’s rejection implies that he is unfit to be a member; but in reality, in a large number of cases, it simply means that he is of sufficient importance to have attracted the ill-will, envy, or dislike of a number of people, many of whom know him only by repute.

Another desirable reform, though one which is unlikely ever to be carried out, would consist in investing committees or members with the power of ejection as well as election. There would be little hardship in a rule conferring the right of exclusion in cases of general unpopularity, and this probably would seldom have to be exercised, as the very fact of its existence would act as a check.

Within recent years a good many club committees have shown a tendency in the direction of the multiplication of rules.

The old aristocratic clubs of the past troubled themselves little with regulations and restrictions. In fact, they were excessively lenient. With the gradual incursion of the commercial class into West End life, however, a very different state of affairs has been brought about.

All over Europe, and especially in England, the bourgeoisie adore regulating somebody or something, and the tendency remains long after members of this class have entered what are known as fashionable circles, and managed to obtain a hold upon the committees of exclusive clubs. In such a position, not a few of them have added largely to the number of rules, some of which in certain clubs are multiplied to the point of absolute absurdity.

Occasionally edicts of this kind possess a certain unconscious humour, as is well exemplified in a by-law, still amongst the rules of a certain club, which sets forth that “Members smoking pipes may not sit or stand in the windows.”

Whether legally such an edict can be enforced would seem to be very doubtful. It is certainly within the right of a committee to prohibit pipe-smoking altogether, and such a regulation prevails in several clubs; in many more it is an unwritten law. In rooms, however, in which pipe-smoking is allowed, it is certainly not within the powers of a committee to define exactly where members shall station themselves whilst “blowing their cloud.” As a matter of fact, committee-men not infrequently fall into the error of thinking that a club committee can issue any decrees it likes. Such, however, is very far from being the case, and the reports of various lawsuits between individual members and certain committees will show that in the majority of instances the latter have not proved victorious.

If, for instance, the subscription of a club be raised, members who joined before the alteration cannot be compelled to pay more than their original subscription. The great increase in club rules and regulations has sometimes produced confusion as to what members may or may not do—a state of affairs which was non-existent when the older West End clubs were founded.