The club building was hit by bombs during the Blitz in 1941, and the club never wholly recovered. After the bombing, it was housed by the struggling Conservative Club at 74 St James's Street, which eventually agreed to a full merger in 1950 under the name of the Bath Club, retaining the Conservative Club's St James's Street club house until 1959. It subsequently moved to 43 Brook Street, and it finally closed in 1981.
The Bath Club was a very elegant club just down the street from Claridge's. Unusually for London clubs It had a ladies' section with an elegant drawing room for afternoon tea. At the ground floor level there was a large dining room with paintings very like Canaletto's on the walls.
Upstairs there was a lounge area with backgammon and card tables and separately a bar. Off the lounge area was a full sized snooker table.
A consortium of members acquired control of the club and then proceeded to sell the lease. The other members could do nothing to stop it. The club was closed in 1981 with members being offered the opportunity to join either the Naval and Military Club or the Carlton Club.
The club was famous for its annual mixed backgammon Tournaments the last of which was held in May 1980.
The club also had its own squash courts, unusual for a central London location and the Bath Club Cup was an annual fixture for London squash players.
The Flyfishers Club shared part of the Bath Club premises during the last few years of the club's life
↑ Alexander-Sinclair, Ian (report) (2007). "Bertie Wooster's Mayfair". Norman Murphy's talk at Wodehouse Week 2007 (The PGW Society UK). Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 3 January 2009. Norman [Murphy] explained that Dover Street was the street of new clubs in the 1920s and 30s. So here Wodehouse found the ideal site for the fictional Drones Club, originally based on the real Bachelors' Club, but subsequently the source of the Drones was transferred to Buck's Club, founded in 1919 by Herbert Buckmaster in nearby Clifford Street. Buck's had by then replaced the Bachelors' as the young man's club. But the Drones Club's swimming pool, complete with its notorious ropes and rings, was taken from the Bath Club, also in Dover Street, at Number 34, amongst whose founders was one of Wodehouse's many uncles. Tuppy Glossop's mean trick on Bertie of looping back the last ring "causing me to plunge into the swimming b. in the full soup and fish" (i.e., full evening dress) was based on fact – it happened all the time in the Bath Club pool.
The Drones Club is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British humorist P. G. Wodehouse. It is a gentlemen's club in London. Many of Wodehouse's Jeeves and Blandings Castle stories feature the club or its members.
Jeeves is a fictional character in a series of comedic short stories and novels by English author P. G. Wodehouse. Jeeves is the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie Wooster. First appearing in print in 1915, Jeeves continued to feature in Wodehouse's work until his last completed novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen in 1974, a span of 60 years.
Bertram Wilberforce Wooster is a fictional character in the comedic Jeeves stories created by British author P. G. Wodehouse. An amiable English gentleman and one of the "idle rich", Bertie appears alongside his valet, Jeeves, whose intelligence manages to save Bertie or one of his friends from numerous awkward situations. Bertie Wooster and Jeeves have been described as "one of the great comic double-acts of all time".
Augustus "Gussie" Fink-Nottle is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves novels of comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a lifelong friend of Jeeves's master Bertie Wooster and a country member of the Drones Club. He wears horn-rimmed spectacles and studies newts.
The Racquet and Tennis Club, familiarly known as the R&T, is a private social and athletic club at 370 Park Avenue, between East 52nd and 53rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
Alexander Charles "Oofy" Prosser is a recurring fictional character from the stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being the millionaire member of the Drones Club. He is also a friend of Jeeves's master Bertie Wooster. The most wealthy and envied member of the Club, he has the nickname "Oofy", which is British slang for "wealthy" or "made of money".
Hildebrand "Tuppy" Glossop is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves stories by humorist P. G. Wodehouse. Tuppy is a member of the Drones Club, a friend of Bertie Wooster, and the fiancé of Angela Travers, Bertie's cousin.
Buck's Club is a gentlemen's club in London, located at 18 Clifford Street, established in June 1919. P. G. Wodehouse mentions it in some stories and modelled his Drones Club mostly after Buck's. It is probably best known for the Buck's Fizz cocktail, created there in 1921 by its bartender McGarry.
The following is a list of recurring or notable fictional locations featured in the stories of P. G. Wodehouse, in alphabetical order by place name.
The Colony Club is a women-only private social club in New York City. Founded in 1903 by Florence Jaffray Harriman, wife of J. Borden Harriman, as the first social club established in New York City by and for women, it was modeled on similar clubs for men. Today, men are admitted as guests.
Dover Street is a street in Mayfair, London. The street is notable for its Georgian architecture as well as the location of historic London clubs and hotels, which have been frequented by world leaders and historic figures in the arts. It also hosts a number of contemporary art galleries. An equestrian sculpture by Elisabeth Frink stands on the junction of Dover Street and Piccadilly, opposite the Ritz Hotel.
Claude Cattermole "Catsmeat" Potter-Pirbright is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves and Drones Club stories of English comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a longtime school friend of Jeeves's master Bertie Wooster and a member of the Drones Club. A West End actor known as "Claude Cattermole" on stage, he is known to his friends by the nickname "Catsmeat".
The Constitutional Club was a London gentlemen's club, now dissolved, which was established in 1883 and disbanded in 1979. Between 1886 and 1959 it had a distinctive red and yellow Victorian terracotta building, designed by Robert William Edis, at 28 Northumberland Avenue, off Trafalgar Square.
The Conservative Club was a London gentlemen's club, now dissolved, which was established in 1840. In 1950 it merged with the Bath Club, and was disbanded in 1981. From 1845 until 1959, the club occupied a building at 74 St James's Street.
The Bachelors' Club was a London gentlemen's club in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, now defunct. As the name suggests, membership was only open to bachelors. The club had a reputation for having a markedly younger membership than many other Edwardian clubs, and given the high-spirited antics which sometimes ensued on the premises, it was cited as an influence on the fictional Drones Club, in some of P.G. Wodehouse's earlier stories. A persistent rumour circulated throughout its existence, and reached wider circulation in the 1920s, that some of its membership were gay - then both illegal and publicly frowned upon – and it soon became superseded by Buck's as the young man's club in London, being forced to close shortly thereafter.
The following is a list of recurring or notable fictional characters in the Drones Club stories of P. G. Wodehouse, listed in alphabetical order by surname.
"Jeeves and the Song of Songs" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, and features the young gentleman Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves. The story was published in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in September 1929, and in Cosmopolitan in the United States that same month. The story was also included as the fourth story in the 1930 collection Very Good, Jeeves.
"The Ordeal of Young Tuppy" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, and features the young gentleman Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves. The story was published in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in April 1930, and in Cosmopolitan in the United States that same month, both as "Tuppy Changes His Mind". The story was also included as the eleventh story in the 1930 collection Very Good, Jeeves.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
