Bohemian Days in Fleet Street

by William Mackay

Another factor in the silent revolution was the lure of the Thames. This, indeed, began to call to the jaded senses of the overworked Londoner at an earlier date than that of the invitation of the bike. In the early seventies I have sculled from Kingston up to Sunbury Lock on a Sunday afternoon without meeting more than a dozen other craft. And during those same years I have idled between Marlow Bridge and Temple Lock without encountering a skiff on the whole reach. The fatuous fisherman, indeed, attached his unwieldy punt to the ripecks stuck in the river-bed, and invented fish stories while he waited for the infrequent bite. Save for him the upper reaches were deserted. The beauties of the river discovered themselves for him and for the swans.

To-day the Thames has become the River of Pleasure. Music floats from club lawns; every reach from Richmond up to Wargrave is joyous with the laughter from skiffs and punts and launches. The locks, ever filling and emptying, give entrance and egress to as many river craft on this one day as in earlier times passed in the whole three hundred and sixty-five. There is a line of house-boats on nearly every reach, and from beneath their awnings, white or striped or apple green, there come the strumming of the banjo and the pop of the champagne cork. On the lawns sloping from week-end houses to the stream happy groups assemble. The men in flannels, the girls in white and cream-coloured fabrics, make for the tennis-courts or for the flotilla moored to the landing-stage in which the lawn meets the river. Yes; in any attempt to assign the causes which were instrumental in banishing the Puritan Sabbath from London, the Thames must be accorded a place of honour. The Thames first showed the Londoner the way out. And the motor car continued and extended the exodus.

It must not be supposed that the old order was permitted to yield place to new without a word of protest here and there. Among other of the many remonstrants were the Reverend and Right Reverend Fathers in God forming the Upper House of Convocation. The action of this episcopal court brings me to the point at which the Press touches the question, and renders this matter of Sunday observance germane to the general scheme of my book.

Singular as it may appear, the original factor which set the Upper House of Convocation reflecting on the matter was an article by Mr. “Jimmy” Davis in his own paper, the Bat. That a gentleman of the Jewish faith should have succeeded in influencing the episcopal chiefs of the English Christians may, on the first blush of it, appear strange. But it is not more strange than the other fact that some of those very Bishops owed their preferment to a Jewish Prime Minister. The whole incident of Jimmy’s interposition, and its results, make an interesting story, though a long one, I am afraid. At this juncture, then, let me address you, who have followed me thus far, in the words that appear in the middle of the stodgy parts of Carlyle’s “Frederick the Great”: “Courage, reader!”

While freedom was thus making for itself wider boundaries, Jimmy Davis was very much in the movement. And being in the movement, he would naturally take an interest in the Pelican Club, which was the most advanced, unconventional, and at times rowdy, protest that had so far been made against the tyranny of Mrs. Grundy. Although I was a member of the Pelican Club myself, I do not remember whether Davis was. Nor need I take the trouble to make inquiries, as the fact does not affect my narrative. Probably he was not. For the institution was founded by a gentleman who had at one time been in his employ in an inferior capacity. Certainly I never met him on the premises.

The Pelican Club was founded by Mr. Ernest Wells—familiarly known as “Swears-and-Swells.” Its membership was composed chiefly of rapid men-about-town, and its principal functions were given on Sunday nights. These were concerts at which the comic element preponderated, and boxing contests conducted in a properly-appointed ring. Suitable premises were secured in Denman Street, a shy thoroughfare close to Piccadilly Circus. The place had formerly been used as the factory of a carriage-builder. The ground-floor was very spacious and very lofty, and in every way was adapted to its new purposes. There was a gallery above, off which opened card-rooms, bedrooms, and other apartments. A bar was fitted up close to the entrance, and the whole place was soon transformed into an extremely bright and cheery institution. Having secured the premises and decided on the lines on which the institution was to be run, there remained for the enterprising founder the important question of obtaining members.

Mr. Wells called in to his assistance Mr. “Willie” Goldberg. A word or two concerning that remarkable little man may not be out of place. John Corlett and Reggie Brooks were taking a walk one day in the neighbourhood of Maidstone, when they came on the encouraging spectacle of a small man sitting by the roadside, and sniggering over the front page of Corlett’s newspaper. The sight was so agreeable and flattering to the wayfarers that they stopped to inquire into the exact source of the stranger’s mirth. The conversation thus commenced ended in the engagement of the small man on the staff of the Pink ’Un. And it turned out to be one of the best engagements that Corlett ever made. Goldberg was a ’Varsity man, his career at Oxford having been, if not brilliant, at least much more than respectable. When he left the University, he obtained a Government appointment, which, in his own phrase, he “chucked.” When encountered by Corlett on a Kentish highway, he was just idling along. He was a born Bohemian, and he idled along until the day of his death.

Now, when Goldberg joined Corlett’s staff, the paper to which he was called upon to contribute was the favourite periodical literature of what constituted the rapid section of Society. And Goldberg not only catered, in his way, for the literary thirst of men-about-town, but he became personally identified with that contingent out of doors. The “Johnnies,” the “mashers,” the “rowdy-dowdy boys,” the “sports,” of the joyous days made much of him. Indeed, they made so much of him that he went to his grave a good quarter of a century before there was any absolute necessity for making that journey.

Here, then, was the man for Ernest Wells. Goldberg was in a position not only to introduce members, but to “boom” the enterprise in the Press. “Willie” at first showed himself coy. But the offer of a share in the concern proved an irresistible lure. An agreement was drawn up, and the Pelican Club became the joint property of Ernest Wells and William Goldberg. The latter gentleman at once set himself to the task of collecting members. And the collection which he succeeded in making as a nucleus certainly promised something in the way of clubs that the West End had yet seen. There were Major “Bob” Hope Johnstone, “Hughie” Drummond of the Stock Exchange, his brother Archie Drummond of the Scots Guards, Captain Fred Russell, “Billy” Fitzwilliam, the Marquis of Queensberry, “Kim” Mandeville (afterwards Duke of Manchester), Arthur Roberts the comedian, and the brothers Horn—not the boxers of that name, but a couple of rich young men.

From such a start the club naturally grew in numbers, and made for itself exactly the sort of reputation which the proprietors desired. Denman Street became the liveliest comer in the swagger end of London. Boxing contests on a Sunday night hit the imagination of the town. A certain general curiosity was excited. Membership, which was restricted, was eagerly sought. The shekels came rolling in. The Pelican, it was believed, had come to stay.