Review in Journal of Liberal History 126, Spring 2025
Dr Thevoz has followed his previous book on early Victorian London clubs, largely based on his PhD thesis, by this hugely entertaining account of the life and mainly later times of the leading London clubs. The author sets it in a series of themes: women, working men’s clubs, colonial emphasis, race, sexual connotations, military and - of most interest to Liberal historians - confidence tricksters. One of most remarkable images is the frontispiece showing a map, produced by the London Underground, of the square mile or so around Pall Mall with the locations of sixty-four clubs all marked!
Assuming that the formidable amount of research for each club had the pleasant requirement of food and wine at each visit, the book required a good constitution - and a replete wallet. Most of us rarely have the opportunity to visit clubs other than our own - my tally is a mere six - and Dr Thevoz’ book provides valuable insights into the life and style of virtually the whole panoply.
Knowing that the incentive for establishing the National Liberal Club in 1882 was partly the long waiting list for the Reform and for the Devonshire it is salutary to read that the Reform has lost its radical ethos and that the Devonshire had ceased to espouse an Liberal heritage by the time it closed in 1976. The NLC finally admitted women as members in 1976. In the early 1960s, in one of its worthy attempts to show its progressive nature, it recruited me on to the General Committee. At a number of its meetings thereafter I proposed that the Club admit women as members. It always failed, with the usual excuse that the plumbing wasn’t up to it! On one occasion an elderly member awoke from slumber with a start, “Does this mean that we will have women members in the Club (pause) at breakfast?” The significance of this was lost on me until Coss Billson, the then Club secretary, later explained to me that the said member lived in a Club bedroom and, in common with other residents, often came down to breakfast in his pyjamas! I recall also that when the women member issue was finally resolved, Laura Grimond, the wife of Jo Grimond, the former Liberal leader, signed wearily and said, “Oh dear, I’ve always been happy to have one Liberal organisation I didn’t have to join.”
Dr Thevoz sets out the gory details of the 1976 manipulation of the NLC by an erstwhile rich Canadian businessman styling himself George de Chabris. Inevitably Jeremy Thorpe was taken in by de Chabris and recommended him to the Club as the man who was going to rescue the club from its dire financial situation. The Club’s General Committee gave him plenipotentiary powers and he proceeded to rip the club off for his personal coffers. I was around at the time and I recall him sitting in the grill room with his cronies happily ordering bottles of excellent Bordeaux from the club’s excellent cellar and just knocking back glass after glass. When he was eventually rumbled, under his real name of George Marks, and despatched from the building, he apparently emptied the tills on his way out. Interestingly, Philip Watkins, the then club treasurer, said to me that it was certainly a dark period, but Marks’ asset stripping possibly kept the club going financially for a short time.
The book is not confined to the posh London gentleman’s clubs but it does have a chapter on the working men’s clubs which flourished from around the beginning of the twentieth century, particularly in the North of England. One background reason for Liberal successes locally and, in 1983, in the parliamentary election, was the existence of six Liberal clubs amongst the thirty working men’s clubs in the Leeds West constituency. These clubs were not packed with serious philosophical Liberals but they were a visible presence and its members had at least had to sign that they were Liberals in order to join. They also gave me donations and a platform in a full concert hall. Incidentally, the 1910 Liberal Year Book contains a list of Liberal clubs in Britain. Though not comprehensive it is the only such list I am aware of.
Dr Thevoz has taken a potentially dry subject and has imbued it with a welcome and highly readable tour of a neglected subject.
Behind Closed Doors - The Secret Life of London Private Members’ Clubs, by Seth Thevoz, pub. Robinson, ISBN 978-1-47214-646-5.
