Guards Club

The Guards Club, established in 1810, was a London Gentlemen's club for officers of the Guards Division, originally defined by the club as being the Coldstream Guards, Grenadier Guards or Scots Guards, traditionally the most socially elite section of the British Army. Officers of the Welsh and Irish Guards were not able to join until the second half of the 20th century. Its clubhouse at 70 Pall Mall was the first to be built on that street, which later became noted for its high concentration of clubs; earlier clubs had been focused on the adjoining St James's Street.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]

Stephen Hoare states that: "Three Guards officers, Captain Rees Howell Gronow, Jack Talbot and that well-known acrobatic dandy Colonel Dan MacKinnon established the Guards Club at the St James's Coffee-House at number 88 St James's Street opposite Lock's the hatter. The link between coffee-houses and the club formation remained as strong as it was a century earlier. The establishment provided exactly the kind of relaxing and informal atmosphere where officers home on leave or waiting to be posted could enjoy decent hospitality. In fact, not long afterwards St James's Coffee-House became the St James's Club in 1840. Meanwhile, the Guards Club acquired premises at 49 St. James's Street, opposite Whites, finally moving to a newly commissioned clubhouse at 70 Pall Mall in 1849".^[7]

In 1975 it gave up its premises and merged with the Cavalry Club in nearby Piccadilly to form the present-day Cavalry and Guards Club.^[1]

References[edit]

^ ^a ^b Cavalry and Guards Club: A Brief History of the Building and the Club, accessed 9 December 2021
^ 'Pall Mall, South Side, Past Buildings: No 71 Pall Mall, Sir Edward Walpole's House', in Survey of London: Volumes 29 and 30, St James Westminster, Part 1, ed. F H W Sheppard (London, 1960), pp. 378-379. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vols29-30/pt1/pp378-379 [accessed 9 December 2021].
^ Newark, Tim (2015). The In & Out: A History of the Naval and Military Club. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 15.
^ Thevoz, Seth Alexander (2018). Club Government: How the Early Victorian World was Ruled from London Clubs. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 28.
^ Hoare, Stephen (2019). Palaces of Power: The Birth and Evolution of London's Clubland. History Press.
^ While the foundation date is generally given as 1810, Sheppard (ed 1960) gives a date of 1813 and Thevoz (2018) gives a date 0f 1815.
^ Hoare, Stephen (2019). Palaces of Power: The Birth and Evolution of London’s Clubland. History Press.

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