The Reform Club is a
private members' club, owned and controlled by its members, on the south side of
Pall Mall in
central London, England. As with all of London's original
gentlemen's clubs, it had an all-male membership for decades, but it was one of the first all-male clubs to change its rules to include the admission of women on equal terms in 1981. Since its foundation in 1836, the Reform Club has been the traditional home for those committed to progressive political ideas, with its membership initially consisting of
Radicals and
Whigs. However, it is no longer associated with any particular political party, and it now serves a purely social function.
The Reform Club currently enjoys extensive reciprocity with similar clubs around the world. It attracts a significant number of foreign members, such as diplomats accredited to the
Court of St James's. Of the current membership of around 2,700, some 500 are "overseas members", and over 400 are women.[1]
This new club, for members of both Houses of
Parliament, was intended to be a forum for the
radical ideas which the First Reform Bill represented: its purpose was to promote "the social intercourse of the reformer of the United Kingdom.[3]
The Reform Club's building was designed by renowned architect
SirCharles Barry[4] and contracted to builders
Grissell &
Peto. The new club was built on
palatial lines, the design being based on the
Palazzo Farnese in
Rome, and its
Saloon in particular is regarded as the finest of all London's clubs. It was officially opened on 1 March 1841.[5] Facilities provided included a library which, following extensive donations from members, grew to contain over 85,000 books.[6]
Besides having had many distinguished members from the literary world, including
William Makepeace Thackeray and
Arnold Bennett, the Reform played a role in some significant events, such as the feud between
Oscar Wilde's friend and literary executor
Robbie Ross and Wilde's ex-lover
Lord Alfred Douglas. In 1913, after discovering that Lord Alfred had taken lodgings in the same house as himself with a view to stealing his papers, Ross sought refuge at the club, from where he wrote to
Edmund Gosse, saying that he felt obliged to return to his rooms "with firearms".[9]
Harold Owen, the brother of
Wilfred Owen, called on
Siegfried Sassoon at the Reform after Wilfred's death,[10] and Sassoon himself wrote a poem entitled "Lines Written at the Reform Club", which was printed for members at Christmas 1920.[11]
Appearances in popular culture and literature
Books
The Reform Club appears in
Anthony Trollope's novel Phineas Finn (1867). This eponymous main character becomes a member of the club and there acquaints Liberal members of the
House of Commons, who arrange to get him elected to an Irish parliamentary borough. The book is one of the political novels in the
Palliser series, and the political events it describes are a fictionalized account of the build-up to the
Second Reform Act (passed in 1867) which effectively extended the franchise to the working classes.[12]
The club also appears in
Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days (published in 1872, as a novel in 1873); the protagonist,
Phileas Fogg, is a member of the Reform Club who sets out to circumnavigate the world on a bet from his fellow members, beginning and ending at the club.[13]
Comedian and travel writer
Michael Palin began and ended his
televised 1989 journey around the world in 80 days at the Reform Club, following his fictional predecessor. Palin was not permitted to enter the building to complete his journey, as had been his intention, so his trip ended on the steps outside. Palin later explained that he had been refused entry because he was not wearing a tie.[16]
^Old PassagesArchived 26 January 2023 at the
Wayback MachineThe Magnus Archives (Podcast). Rusty Quill. 8 September 2016. Retrieved 26 January 2023.
Further reading
The Reform Club Library: A Retrospect, 1841-1991 (London: Reform Club, 1991).
Burlingham, Russell; Billis, Roger (2005). Reformed Characters. The Reform Club in History and Literature. An Anthology with Commentary. London: Reform Club.
J. Mordaunt Crook, The Reform Club (London: Reform Club, 1973)
Escott, T. H. S. (1914). Club Makers and Club Members. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
Fagan, Louis (1887). The Reform Club 1836–1886: Its Founders and its Architect. London: Reform Club.
Sharpe, Michael (1996). The Political Committee of the Reform Club. London: Reform Club.
ISBN0-9503053-2-4.
Thévoz, Seth Alexander (2018). Club Government: How the Early Victorian World was Ruled from London Clubs. London: I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury.
ISBN978-1-78453-818-7.
Thévoz, Seth Alexander (2022). Behind Closed Doors: The Secret Life of London Private Members' Clubs. London: Robinson/Little, Brown.
ISBN978-1-47214-646-5.
Urbach, Peter (1999). The Reform Club: Some Twentieth Century Members – A Photographic Collection. London: Reform Club.
Van Leeuwen, Thomas A P (2020) [2017]. The Magic Stove: Barry, Soyer and The Reform Club or How a Great Chef Helped to Create a Great Building. Amsterdam/Paris: Les Editions du Malentendu/ Jap Sam Books.
ISBN978-90-826690-0-8.
Woodbridge, George (1978). The Reform Club 1836–1978: A History from the Club's Records. London: Clearwater.
ISBN0-9503053-1-6.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Reform Club.