The Travellers’ still clings to certain rules framed in a more formal age, and smoking is prohibited except in certain rooms. It is rather curious that, in days when ladies tolerate cigarettes in their very boudoirs, not a few clubs should still treat smokers in the same way as prevailed in the days when tobacco was only tolerated in one or two uncomfortable apartments.
Several distinguished men have belonged to this club, the membership of which includes many high Government officials—heads of Departments, Ambassadors, and Chargés d’Affaires. The general tone here is one of solemn tranquillity; and though in former days there was a regular muster of whist-players, which included Talleyrand, no game of cards seems now to be played.
During the season of autumnal renovation the Travellers’ extends its hospitality to one or two other clubs. A dashing young soldier, becoming in this way a visitor, and being desirous of playing bridge, called for a couple of packs of cards and a well-known racing paper. To his intense disgust the astounded waiter who took the order, after making inquiry, reported that the cards would have to be obtained from outside, and the Travellers’ did not take in the paper asked for.
Though in a certain way a sociable club—for a large proportion of the members are acquainted with one another—the Travellers’ is principally given up to reading, dozing, and meditation. Of conversation there is but little.
Another club which was founded during the same epoch as the Travellers’ was the Oriental.
A hundred years ago there were several institutions connected with the East in the West End. Such were the Calcutta Club, the Madras Club, the Bombay Club, and the China Club, frequented chiefly by merchants and bankers. These, however, were in reality associations rather than clubs.
The Bombay Club was located at 13 Albemarle Street, and consisted of one large news-room and an anteroom. It opened at ten in the morning and closed at midnight, light refreshments being obtainable of the porter, whilst smoking was strictly prohibited.
The need for a regular club-house where Anglo-Indians and others might meet in comfort gradually came to be felt, and in July 1824 the Oriental Club was started at 16 Lower Grosvenor Street. The original club-house, it may be added, has now become business premises, being occupied by Messrs. Collard and Collard. It is said that when the owner of this house gave it up to the club he sold some of its furniture and effects to a certain Mr. Joseph Sedley, afterwards immortalized by Thackeray as the pseudo-collector of Boggley Wallah.
The first steward of the Oriental was a Mr. Pottanco, who had long been employed by Sir John Malcolm, probably in the East. Members presented books and pictures, and one, Sir Charles Forbes, cheered the hearts of the Anglo-Indians by sometimes sending a fine turtle to be converted into soup.
The first chairman of the Oriental Club was Sir John Malcolm, a very popular figure in society. Sir John was a great talker, on account of which he had been nicknamed “Bahawder Jaw,” it was said, by Canning. There were ten Malcolm brothers, two of them Admirals. All ten seem to have possessed the same characteristic, for when Lord Wellesley was assured by Sir John that he and three brothers had once met together in India, the Governor-General declared it to be “impossible—quite impossible!” Malcolm reiterated his statement. “I repeat it is impossible; if four Malcolms had come together, we should have heard the noise all over India.”