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Welcome to The Travellers Club

The Travellers Club was founded in 1819 by a cohort led by Lord Castlereagh and in 1832 moved to its present purpose-built clubhouse designed by Charles Barry. The Club's founding ethos was to establish a meeting place for like-minded gentlemen who had travelled abroad, and where they could also entertain foreign visitors and diplomats posted to London.

Members of the Diplomatic Service, the Home Civil Service and the Armed Forces have traditionally formed the backbone of the Travellers Club and we continue to have many among our members.

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The story of The Travellers Club, the oldest club on Pall Mall and a home-from-home for globetrotters for 200 years

To mark the bicentenary of The Travellers Club – the oldest club in Pall Mall – John Martin Robinson tells the story of an institution and its home, a purpose-built Renaissance palace. Photographs by Paul Highnam.

The Travellers Club was founded in May 1819, brainchild of Viscount Castlereagh, Foreign Secretary and British Minister Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna. He spoke of establishing a club in which men could meet socially with other travellers, visiting ‘foreigners of distinction’ and diplomats.

Throughout its history, these elements have been a strong part of the club’s character. To qualify, members had to travel 500 miles in a straight line outside England. A member quipped it had to be on land, otherwise ‘convicts from Botany Bay might have qualified’.

Photograph by Paul Highnam/Country Life Picture Library

The club emerged after the Napoleonic Wars, when war and trade had carried mariners, soldiers and officials across the world. For cultural travellers, conflict had deflected visits from the usual Grand Tour destinations to Greece, the Levant and Egypt.

Early members included five future Prime Ministers – Aberdeen, Palmerston, Canning, Lord John Russell and the Earl of Derby – as well as several Greek Revival architects/designers: Smirke, Wilkins, Westmacott, Thomas Hope and C. R. Cockerell, the latter the club’s architectural conscience.

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There were diplomats, such as the Earl of Elgin, who gave a plaster cast of the Parthenon Marbles, and his associates Lt-Col William Leake, who brought the Marbles to London, and William Richard Hamilton, Elgin’s secretary, who prevented the French from removing the Rosetta Stone from Egypt.

They were all trustees of the British Museum and several founders of the National Gallery joined them, including Sir George Beaumont, George Vernon and the Rev Holwell Carr, who all gave their collections to the gallery.

The founder chairman was the 2nd Lord Auckland, later Governor General of India and responsible for the unsuccessful First Afghan War. Other committee members included John Sawrey Morritt, friend of Walter Scott, who had surveyed the scene of the Iliad and bought Velásquez’s ‘Rokeby Venus’, and Sir Gore Ouseley, the earliest British ambassador to Persia. Military figures in the early membership included the Duke of Wellington, the Marquess of Anglesey and Lords Raglan and Cardigan.

‘This house, in turn, proved inadequate as the membership grew’

The first foreign visitors were Russian: Count Simon Woronzow, ambassador to George III, and his son, Prince Michael Woronzow, commander of the Russian cavalry at Moscow in 1812 and governor of the Caucasus, who employed Edmund Blore to design a Moorish-Jacobethan palace at Alupka in the Crimea.

Most famous of the early diplomat members was Talleyrand during his four years as ambassador in London, playing whist most nights and for whom an extra handrail was added to the stair bannisters.

The early visitors also included writers, such as the American Nathaniel Parker Willis and the Frenchman Louis de Vignet. A less welcome guest, who caused trouble by taking books from the library and criticising the card accountant, was Prince Pückler-Muskau. He left a description of the club in his Tour of a German Prince in England (1832).

He was complimentary about the club as an institution, but less so about the members: ‘The English nobility haughty as it is, can scarcely measure itself against the French in antiquity and purity of blood.’ He described them as ‘new families, often of very mean and even discreditable extraction’ and commented that it was easy to muddle the servants for the masters, as the former had more ‘natural dignity’ and better manners.

In 1819, the club took temporary premises in Waterloo Place, which were adapted by Cockerell. These proved too small and rickety and it soon moved to a larger house at 49, Pall Mall. This was also converted for the club by Cockerell, who presented his plastercast of the Phigaleian Marbles from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios, which he had excavated at Bassae and secured for the British Museum. This was installed in the Coffee Room (now transferred to the library of the Barry building) and Lord Elgin’s plaster Parthenon Marbles in the Drawing Room. They gave the building a strongly Grecian character during its 10-year existence.

This house, in turn, proved inadequate as the membership grew. A perfect new site presented itself on the other side of Pall Mall when George IV moved to Buckingham Palace and Carlton House was redeveloped.

The Office of Woods and Forest (Crown Estate) were keen to spread the architectural grandeur of the Metropolitan Improvements along Pall Mall by encouraging new club buildings, which were more impressive than private houses. On either side of Waterloo Place were the United Service Club, designed by Nash, the Athenaeum by Decimus Burton and, opposite the former, the United University Club by William Wilkins.

In 1828, The Travellers secured the site of three houses immediately adjoining the Athenaeum for its permanent base. This was not without hitches, as George IV, with characteristic insouciance, kyboshed the original site deal by insisting on retaining a house on it for a member of his Household; the club accepted a slightly more constricted site, with a condition that the land behind was not built on, and so the setting of trees and grass in Carlton Gardens survives.

Under the chairmanship of Lord Granville Somerset, The Travellers chose its architect by competition. No other St James’s club has selected an architect by such a process.

In May 1828, it was resolved to ‘procure plans from no less than five eminent architects’ and to obtain cost estimates from an ‘experienced surveyor’. For the latter, they chose Joseph Henry Good, Surveyor to the Com-missioners for Building New Churches.

In fact, seven architects were approached initially and 11 in total. Many had already designed clubs. Two members of The Travellers were included: Robert Smirke and William Wilkins. John Peter Deering (a classical archaeologist and, with Wilkins, joint architect of the United University Club), William Atkinson (a pupil of James Wyatt), Decimus Burton, Benjamin Dean Wyatt (architect of Crockford’s and the Oriental, son of James) and Lewis Wyatt (James’s nephew).

The following week, four more architects were approached: Henry Harrison, Jeffry Wyatville, Charles Barry and Thomas Hopper (architect of Arthur’s Club). A couple more were subsequently asked: Ambrose Poynter and Edward Blore. Of these, Smirke, Burton, Lewis Wyatt and Jeffry Wyatville declined, but eight submitted designs.

As the drawings of unsuccessful entries were returned with thanks, all are now lost.

Cockerell was not on the sub-committee, but was on the general committee, and his fastidious criticism elsewhere of his colleagues’ work may explain why some were turned down; nearly everybody thought Blore uninspired and Poynter lacked distinction.

The palm was offered to the outsider, Charles Barry. At 33, he was the youngest to enter and had designed little except the Greek Revival Royal Institution of Fine Arts (now Art Gallery) in Manchester and some cheap Commissioners’ churches in Man-chester and London. The former may have been familiar to northern members, such as Edward Legh of Lyme or Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, but he cannot otherwise have been known to the committee.

His adventurous travels as a student to France, Italy, Greece and Turkey would have appealed to the club, but it was probably his track record with the Commissioners of New Churches that won him the job. Joseph Good was able to advise the club that Barry was experienced in keeping within approved building budgets and that advice may have been decisive. There was also the originality and excellence of the design, with its clever planning for the deep site and the novel deployment of Italian Renaissance palazzo architecture.

The competition design of 1828 was revised to meet the present, narrower site in March 1829 and then revised again to meet criticisms from the Crown and Athenaeum about the likely impact on the cornice of the latter.

Barry’s ingenious solution was to create recesses on both elevations adjoining the Athenaeum. This allowed slightly more interesting shapes for the main rooms and enabled the cornice of The Travellers to be returned at the sides rather than cut off, something that has always been admired.

Externally, Barry drew on Florentine and Venetian sources for the two elevations, Raphael’s Palazzo Pandolfini for Pall Mall and the Grand Canal for Carlton Gardens (where the lawns substituted for Venetian water).

Inside, the vocabulary stretched to include Grecian and English Palladian details, in the library chimneypieces or the carved-oak Grand Staircase. Enthusiasm for the latter may have come from the chairman of the building committee Gen the Hon Sir Edward Cust, with memories of his ancestral home at Belton in Lincolnshire.

Barry’s most novel stroke was the internal cortile in the centre of the plan, with the halls and landings arranged like arcades round it. This enabled light to reach the depths of the interior, including the kitchen, scullery and Still Room in the basement.

The building was constructed by Stokes (Paxton’s son-in-law); it was roofed in 1831 and first used to watch William IV’s Coronation procession. It was completed in 1832.

Barry’s architecture has always been cherished by The Travellers, which, over the decades, has allowed art and architecture students to visit and make measured drawings. There was only one blip in the record: Barry remained the club architect throughout his life, but after him, Hungerford Pollen advised. He was Cockerell’s nephew.

In order to allow in more light, Pollen removed Barry’s balconies from the library windows in 1867 and replaced them with ‘Baker Street’ iron balustrades. Following furious protests, not least from Barry’s younger son and biographer Edward, the club reinstated the balconies to the original design. Suitably chastened, it never attempted to alter the elevations again.

Over the years, several changes have been made to the interior. A fire in 1850 destroyed Barry’s billiard room and the Elgin plaster frieze. In 1910, the Coffee Room was moved up to the first-floor drawing room (Fig 3) to create a ground-floor Smoking Room.

The entrance hall was also tactfully extended, reusing Barry’s windows and chimneypiece into the cortile by the then club architect Macvicar Anderson. Few realise this not part of the original Barry design.

Anderson added upper storeys of bedrooms after the First World War. In the early 20th century, the club benefitted from the care and knowledge of a member, Hal Goodhart-Rendal, who, for a time, also acted as the club architect. He recommended Fred Rowntree as his successor and Rowntree designed the handsome First and Second World War Memorials and restored the club after it suffered bomb damage in 1940.

Goodhart-Rendal had restored and replicated the Colza chandeliers and other light fittings and produced a design for roofing over the main floor of the cortile to make a ‘saloon’. This was not proceeded with, nor was its revival in 1970 by Ian Grant, chairman of the Victorian Society, although he was responsible for re-graining the library in its original oak with a grant from the Greater London Council Historic Buildings Division.

This was one of several late-20th-century restorations of original decorative schemes, including the repainting of the Coffee Room in Barry’s yellows and greys in 1988. The library remains the heart of the club and, as well as being one of the most beautiful rooms in London, it contains the finest collection of travel books in private hands, donated by members over two centuries. Its present flourishing condition with lectures and exhibitions attests to the continuing vigour of The Travellers after 200 years.

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Traditional Gentlemen's Clubs of London

• By londonclubs
• Published on : January 26, 2023
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The Travellers Club, located at 106 Pall Mall, is one of London’s oldest and most prestigious gentlemen’s clubs. Founded in 1819, the club was established for “gentlemen who have travelled out of the British Isles to a distance of at least five hundred miles from London in a direct line.” This membership requirement, along with the club’s luxurious and refined atmosphere, has made it a favorite among diplomats, politicians, and other accomplished individuals. At one point, so many members were linked to MI5 and MI6 that it was simply known as the Spooks Club.

The club’s building, designed by Charles Barry, is a stunning example of Palladian style and has been a London landmark for over 200 years. Inside, members can enjoy various lounges, reading rooms, dining rooms, an extensive library, and a billiards room.

In addition to its impressive facilities, the Travellers Club is also known for its rich history and distinguished membership. Past members include explorers, statesmen, and literary figures such as David Livingstone, Winston Churchill, and Rudyard Kipling. The club has also played host to numerous important events, including the signing of the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale in 1904.

Despite its traditional and exclusive reputation, the Travellers Club is committed to promoting a diverse and inclusive membership. Today, the club continues to attract a diverse range of accomplished individuals from various fields and backgrounds.

Overall, the Travellers Club is a true London institution, offering its members a luxurious and refined atmosphere, rich history, and distinguished membership, along with a commitment to promoting diversity and inclusivity. It is a perfect place for the distinguished traveler and for those who appreciate the best of British culture and tradition. Unfortunately, the clubhouse can be quite dead at times. Moreover, the dining room service, like at the Oxford & Cambridge Club, requires each table to fill in an order form. To members of other clubs, this can seem not only cumbersome but also rather strange and impersonal.

Hello I will be visiting London in October of this year. Being of curios temperament I wonder if i may visit your club perhaps enjoy a meal and or at least experience its historical significance. I’d be thrilled to hear back from you. Thankyou

Regretfully this is merely a blog about London Clubs. We’re not affiliated with the Travellers, and you would have to contact them directly. Generally speaking clubs will only allow visitors from reciprocal clubs.

I have been a member of the Travellers’ for 30 years, and in all that time I have never managed to find the billiards room. Perhaps you might let me know where it is?

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A window of the Traveller's Club

Charles Barry

The Traveller's sits at 106 Pall Mall between the Athenaeum and the Reform Club .

Photograph copyright 2005 George P. Landow

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

“It is a club of world-wide fame, the Travellers. Even eligible candidates have sometimes been on the proposal book for ten years. The Marquis of Londonderry originated it immediately after the peace of 1814, "as a resort for gentlemen who had resided or travelled abroad, as well as with a view to the accommodation of foreigners," who, properly endorsed, are made honorary members during their stay in London. No person is eligible who has not travelled "out of the British Islands to a distance of at least five hundred miles from London in a direct line." Gambling is not permitted. All games of hazard are excluded. Cards are not allowed before dinner, and the highest stake is guinea points at whist. Mr. Timbs says Prince Talleyrand, during his residence in London, was a frequenter of the whist tables, and he thinks it was here that he made his felicitous rejoinder in regard to the marriage of an elderly lady of rank with her servant : 'How- ever could a lady of her birth make such a match?' 'It was late in the game,' responded Talleyrand; 'at nine we don't reckon honours.'"” — Joseph Hatton.

Bibliography

Hatton, Joseph. Club-Land London and Provincial . London: J. S. Vertie, 1890. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of Toronto Library. Web. 29 February 2012.

Last modified 26 July 2005

Travellers Club

Gentlemen's club in london / from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, dear wikiwand ai, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:.

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Summarize this article for a 10 year old

The Travellers Club is a private gentlemen's club situated at 106 Pall Mall in London , United Kingdom . It is the oldest of the surviving Pall Mall clubs , having been established in 1819, and one of the most exclusive. It was described as "the quintessential English gentleman's club" by the Los Angeles Times in 2004. [1]

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Literary Review

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History , London

Thomas Blaikie

Bed linen & briefs, hair & spare, how deep is your basement, gold, frankincense & mozzarella, petal power, no catholics or californians, before the elbow bump, gravy with everything, peace maker & flower arranger, does she wear one to bed, wtf is grammar, members only, the travellers club: a bicentennial history 1819–2019, by john martin robinson, libanus press for the travellers club 367pp £35.

Who would write, let alone read, a weighty history (literally so: my elderly mother complained she couldn’t lift it), published in a luxury edition priced at £35, of the parish hall or Women’s Institute hut to be found in one of our lesser-known villages? But this is a history of the Travellers Club, 106 Pall Mall, London: patron, His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh; premises, a superb Italianate palace designed by Charles Barry and completed in 1832; members, a blinding cascade of distinction over two centuries. ‘In the 1920s and 1930s’, John Martin Robinson writes, ‘diplomat members of the Club included Sir Horace Rumbold, 9th Bt … Eric Drummond, the 16th Earl of Perth, Ambassador to Italy, Esme Howard, 1st Lord Howard of Penrith … the Hon Ronald Lindsay … Sir Frank Lascelles … and Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen.’ An appendix lists members who were or are Knights of the Garter.

The Travellers Club was founded in 1819 with a distinctly anti-Brexit agenda of welcoming foreign visitors and bringing together those who had travelled principally to Europe, not necessarily on the traditional grand tour but as soldiers and diplomats too. You could only join if you’d journeyed five hundred miles outside the British Isles. In the time of social change after the Napoleonic Wars, the club was a howling success, always bursting out of one building into another, until finally settling into the Barry mansion in 1832, where it has been ever since. Members were not exclusively prime ministers or aristocracy, although it is noted that really hardcore travellers, such as David Livingstone, John Speke and Samuel Baker, were not members. After the Second World War, rather more wacky figures, such as Patrick Leigh Fermor, Nigel Nicolson and Alan Pryce-Jones, got in. Today, the club appears to be in the hands of QCs and that species of immensely important person nobody has ever heard of.

A London gentlemen’s club is a London gentlemen’s club when all is said and done: a stately home in the middle of London, but with no bedrooms (originally at least) and, of course, no women, a place where one goes to meet people like oneself over ‘luncheon’ or dinner. These institutions have their own funny customs of which they tend to be immensely proud, so what appears to be the dining room at the Travellers is called the Coffee Room. Those of us who are not members might be inclined to peer in and find it all rather preposterous, but that would be sour grapes.

So what has actually been happening at the Travellers Club over the last two hundred years? The installation of a Turkish bath in the club’s second premises was quite an event, as was the serving of dinner at 7pm instead of 6.30pm, and later the provision of luncheon. There were spats with the Athenaeum, next door to the Barry building, regarding a light well which objectionable windows overlooked. That went on for fifteen years or more. Come 1867 and the committee was trying to replace Barry’s stone balustrade with iron railings to let in more light. Frightful outcry, stone reinstated at once.

Meanwhile, an errant laundry mistress was found to have placed a large number of the club’s tablecloths in various pawnshops in the neighbourhood. In the second half of the 19th century, a member said the tea was ‘nauseous’. The committee was appalled: they held a tea tasting and declared the tea ‘delicious’. This followed on from the terrible coffee incident, when the steward had to be told not to offer the previous day’s brew. But oh the joy of the Otis lift, installed in 1904, and the glory when Barry’s iron flambeaux outside the club were lit to mark great events, such as the wedding of the Prince of Wales. The kitchen chimney at 106 Pall Mall ‘in particular was prone to regular conflagrations’, Robinson writes, but rest assured that ‘Barry’s new building was always maintained in exemplary condition’. We also learn that ‘an unexpected off-shoot of the Crimean War was an increase in the number of members smoking … in the Club’.

Intermittently, Robinson is aware of the bathos of all this. The club’s members, he says at one stage, ‘were often up to their necks in public affairs as individuals in Britain and the empire. Generally, however, the Club concerned itself largely with its own business.’ Well, it’s a club, isn’t it? That’s the whole point: to be a little sealed-off world of its own and to have a book like this written about it which is really a catalogue or roll call rather than what is commonly understood to be a book. Everybody and everything must be included.

Robinson refers to ‘luncheon’ without irony and calls a recipe a ‘receipt’, but really is to be congratulated (and no doubt will be at some formal event in the club with speeches) for maintaining over 367 large pages a steady, dignified and perfectly smooth flow, punctuated by the occasional tiny little quip – just like the club itself, one imagines.

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The Travellers Club : a bicentennial history, 1819-2019

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THE TRAVELLERS' CLUB

This famous Club was originated shortly after the Peace of 1814, by the Marquis of Londonderry (then Lord Castlereagh), with a view to a resort for gentlemen who had resided or travelled abroad, as well as with a view to the accommodation of foreigners, who, when properly recommended, receive an invitation for the period of their stay. One of the Rules directs "That no person be considered eligible to the Travellers' Club who shall not have travelled out of the British Islands to a distance of at least 500 miles from London in a direct line." Another Rule directs "That no dice and no game of hazard be allowed in the rooms of the Club, nor any higher stake than guinea points, and that no cards be introduced before dinner."

Prince Talleyrand, during his residence in London, generally joined the muster of whist-players at the Travellers'; probably, here was the scene of this felicitous rejoinder. The Prince was enjoying his rubber, when the conversation turned on the recent union of an elderly lady of respectable rank. "How ever could Madame de S—— make such a match?—a person of her birth to marry a valet-de-chambre !" "Ah," replied Talleyrand, "it was late in the game: at nine we don't reckon honours."

The present Travellers' Club-house, which adjoins the Athenæum in Pall-Mall, was designed by Barry, R.A., and built in 1832. It is one of the architect's most admired works. Yet, we have seen it thus treated, with more smartness than judgment, by a critic who is annoyed at its disadvantageous comparison with its more gigantic neighbours:—

"The Travellers' is worse, and looks very like a sandwich at the Swindon station—a small stumpy piece of beef between two huge pieces of bread, i.e. the Athenæum and the Reform Clubs, which look as if they were urging their migratory neighbour to resume the peregrinations for which its members are remarkable. Yet people have their names down ten years at the Travellers' previous to their coming up for ballot. An election reasonably extended would supply funds for a more advantageous and extended position."

The architecture is the nobler Italian, resembling a Roman palace: the plan is a quadrangle, with an open area in the middle, so that all the rooms are well lighted. The Pall-Mall front has a bold and rich cornice, and the windows are decorated with Corinthian pilasters: the garden front varies in the windows, but the Italian taste is preserved throughout, with the most careful finish: the roof is Italian tiles. To be more minute, the consent of all competent judges has assigned a very high rank to this building as a piece of architectural design; for if, in point of mere quantity , it fall greatly short of many contemporary structures, it surpasses nearly every one of them in quality , and in the artist-like treatment. In fact, it makes an epoch in our metropolitan architecture; for before, we had hardly a specimen of that nobler Italian style, which, instead of the flutter and flippery, and the littleness of manner, which pervade most of the productions of the Palladian school, is characterized by breath and that refined simplicity arising from unity of idea and execution, and from every part being consistently worked up, yet kept subservient to one predominating effect. Unfortunately, the south front, which is by far the more striking and graceful composition, is comparatively little seen, being that facing Carlton Gardens, and not to be approached so as to be studied as it deserves; but when examined, it certainly must be allowed to merit all the admiration it has obtained. Though perfect, quiet, and sober in effect, and unostentatious in character, this building of Barry's is remarkable for the careful finish bestowed on every part of it. It is this quality, together with the taste displayed in the design generally, that renders it an architectural bijou. Almost any one must be sensible of this, if he will but be at the pains to compare it with the United Service Club, eastward of which, as far as mere quantity goes, there is much more.

Another critic remarks: "The Travellers' fairly makes an epoch in the architectural history of Club-houses, as being almost the first, if not the very first, attempt, to introduce into this country that species of rich astylar composition which has obtained the name of the Italian palazzo mode, by way of contradistinction from Palladianism and its orders. This production of Barry's has given a fresh impulse to architectural design, and one in a more artistic direction; and the style adopted by the architect has been applied to various other buildings in the provinces as well as in the metropolis; and its influence has manifested itself in the taste of our recent street architecture."

The Travellers' narrowly escaped destruction on October 24, 1850, when a fire did great damage to the billiard-rooms, which were, by the way, an afterthought, and addition to the original building, but by no means an improvement upon the first design, for they greatly impaired the beauty of the garden-front.

John Timbs Club Life of London Vol. I London, 1866

© Stephen Hart 2023

The Travellers Club

The Travellers Club was founded in 1819 by a cohort led by Lord Castlereagh and in 1832 moved to its present purpose-built clubhouse designed by Charles Barry. The Club's founding ethos was to establish a meeting place for like-minded gentlemen who had travelled abroad, and where they could also entertain foreign visitors and diplomats posted to London.

Distinguished members of the Diplomatic Service, the Home Civil Service and the Armed Forces have traditionally formed the backbone of the Travellers Club and we continue to have many among our members.

The Club maintains reciprocal arrangements with some 140 similar clubs throughout the world.

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The Travellers Club – why gentleman members won't let the ladies in

Where else can a chap escape "normal life" but in a near 200-year-old men-only private club?

When Anthony Layden, chairman of The Travellers Club , consulted members on whether "ladies" should be allowed to join, there was, he confessed, "a degree of mutual incomprehension" between those for and against the idea.

While women are welcome as guests throughout its posh Pall Mall home – other than in the smoking room and the cocktail bar – Layden, a former UK ambassador to Morocco and Libya, decided last year it was time to canvas opinions of members, who include foreign visitors and diplomats, on allowing ladies in.

By 60% to 40%, the gentlemen at the club – founded in 1819 "for gentlemen who had travelled out of the British Isles to a distance of at least five hundred miles from London in a direct line" – decided they like things just the way they are.

Thanks to Layden's account, obtained by the Evening Standard , we know there were strong expressions in favour of change at the club, whose patron is Prince Philip.

One enthusiast suggested the male-only policy was half a century out of date. "Do we, a club for cosmopolitan internationalists, really wish to remain on a par with the Taliban?" asked one. Another suggested that if the club continued to bar travellers because they were women, it would be "out of key" with what people "accept and take for granted in their professional and personal lives".

But the naysayers generally expressed themselves more strongly. Male congeniality would be destroyed, said one, warning that "hen parties would appear and shrill voices be heard". Another, backing what he called the "spirit and conviviality" at the club, added: "Whilst to some, this may conjure up images of the Symposium, Roman baths, clandestine cults and rugby clubs, there are a few refuges a gentleman ought to have."

The written word cannot tell how firmly in a cheek a gentleman's tongue may have been while making such comments, but another opponent of change argued: "I see the club as a bastion and retreat from the rigours of normal life and despite being a young(ish) member, I would consider women to be in the normal-life category."

Layden's recommendation, accepted by the club's general committee last month, was that the idea of letting women in should be taken no further.

While he agreed "there are, as there have always been, many distinguished lady travellers and adventurers whose presence in the club would enhance our conversations", the future should remain "steady as she goes".

He hoped those wanting change would hold back from pressing for it for the time being.

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From the archive, 13 August 1966: Private clubs put women in their place

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TRAVELLERS' CLUB (THE), next The Athenaeum in Pall Mall, originated, soon after the peace of 1814, in a suggestion of the late Lord Londonderry, then Lord Castlereagh, for the resort of gentlemen who had resided or travelled abroad, as well as with a view to the accommodation of foreigners, who, when properly recommended, receive an invitation for the period of their stay. Here Prince Talleyrand was fond of a game at whist. With all the advantage of his great imperturbability of face, he is said to have been an indifferent player. The present Club-house (Charles Barry, architect) was built in 1832, and is much and deservedly admired. The Carlton-terrace front is very fine. The Club is limited to 700 members. Each member, on his admission, pays 30 guineas, in which sum is included his subscription for the current year. The annual subscription is 10 guineas. Rule 6 directs, "That no person be considered eligible to the Travellers' Club, who shall not have travelled out of the British islands to a distance of at least 500 miles from London in a direct line. Rule 10 directs, "That no dice and no game of hazard be allowed in the rooms of the Club, nor any higher stake than guinea points, and that no cards be introduced before dinner."

Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850

The TRAVELLERS', 106 Pall Mall, built in 1832, at a cost of nearly 30,000 l ., from Sir Charles Barry's designs. The number of members is limited to 725, each of whom must have travelled at least 500 miles from London. Entrance fee, 31 l . 10s.; annual subscription, 10 l . 10s.

Cruchley's London in 1865 : A Handbook for Strangers, 1865

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Travellers’ Club ,  106, Pall Mall. — The following is the form of recommendation of candidates for this club: “A. B. being desirous of becoming a member of the Travellers’ Club, we, the undersigned, do, from our personal knowledge, recommend him to that honour, subject to the qualification of Rule 15.” The provision of Rule 15 is “that no person be considered eligible who shall not have travelled out of the British Islands to a distance of at least 500 miles from London in a direct line.” The members elect by ballot. When 12 and under 18 members ballot, one black ball, if repeated, shall exclude; if 18 and upwards ballot, two black balls exclude, and the ballot cannot be repeated. The presence of 12 members is necessary for a ballot. Each member on admission is required to pay £42, which sum includes his subscription for the current year. Each subsequent annual subscription is £10 10s. 

Charles Dickens (Jr.) , Dickens's Dictionary of London, 1879

Travellers Club

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106 Pall Mall

London SW1Y 5EP

United Kingdom

St James's

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I came here for a work dinner and I always feel a bit mystified with members only clubs. Funny thing is that for all the ones that I've been to, they just seem like regular bars and places but with less people. I've never been to a place where there is a dress code where the men have to wear a jacket and tie! Lucky for me being a lady it's a lot easier and more comfortable. Now, this place is really old school English hang out. I went to the ladies and was puzzled with this brush that looked like something you'd use on horses. I asked one of my colleagues and turns out to be a clothing brush (who woulda thunk it?). We were in a private room which kind of reminded me of something out of Downton Abbey. Non vegetarians had this lobster and crab cake like thing which was delicious which was paired with a white wine. Once we were done with that, we had roast lamb with seasonal vegetables. Now this is where I felt like I was dining at someone's home. The servers first distributed the plates then had a hug platter of lamb and served each person - then the vegetables, then last gravy. I'm probably making a big deal out of something quite common but I was soaking it all in. All of it was deliciously prepared and presented. If I get another chance to piggy back my way in here, I'd totally go back!

Like most of the gentleman's clubs of old, this place has a unique charm and effortless style that comes from being a members only establishment. Some of the rooms were recently updated by the man who did the Downing Street interiors. One of the few Gentleman's Clubs that actually still only admits men to most of its rooms, the Travellers' is a unique place with a friendly and pleasantly formal atmosphere. The food is good, the service immaculate, but different from commercial places. I agree with the other reviewer that the smoking ban is regretful, but I suppose times move on. If you have a chance to be invited to this establishment you will not be disappointed.

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The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.

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The must-visit beach clubs for the summer season provide sun, style and an unforgettable day out. Alicia Miller picks the most glamorous ones to bag a lounger at

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