The Clermont Set was an exclusive group of rich British gamblers who met at the Clermont Club, originally at 44 Berkeley Square, in London's fashionable Mayfair district. It closed in March 2018 and re-opened in 2022. Clermont Club is now temporarily closed.
The house at 44 Berkeley Square was built in 1740 (to the design of the architect William Kent) for Lady Isabella Finch (1700–1771) who was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Princess Amelia. It is famed for its theatrical staircase [1] and large Grand Saloon, "one of the finest rooms of its scale and period in London", [2] the design of which was based on the famous Double Cube Room at Wilton House in Wiltshire. [2] She never married but became Lady of the Bedchamber to Princess Amelia, a spinster aunt of King George III. [2] It was purchased after her death by William Henry Fortescue, 1st Earl of Clermont (1722–1806), an Irish peer, and served as his London townhouse. [3] Princess Amelia visited the house frequently, even after Lady Bell Finch's passing since the new owner Lord Clermont was also her friend. [3]
It was the first London casino opened by John Aspinall after he received a gaming licence under Britain's new gambling law. Aspinall sold the club in 1972 to Playboy Enterprises, which was forced to sell it in 1982 when it lost its licence. [4]
The club was founded in 1962 by John Aspinall and the original membership included five dukes, five marquesses, almost twenty earls and two cabinet ministers. [5]
Society figures who frequented the club included Peter Sellers, [6] Ian Fleming, David Stirling, Lucian Freud, Lord Lucan, Lord Derby, Lord Boothby, and the Duke of Devonshire. [5]
Businessman members included James Goldsmith, Tiny Rowland, Gianni Agnelli, Jim Slater, and Kerry Packer.
In 1976 Goldsmith initiated a libel action against the satirical magazine Private Eye , which had alleged that members of the Clermont Set, including Goldsmith, had conspired to shelter Lord Lucan after Lucan was suspected of murdering his family nanny, Sandra Rivett. Goldsmith won a partial victory and eventually reached a settlement with the magazine.[ citation needed ]
Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, commonly known as Lord Lucan, was a British peer who disappeared after being suspected of murder. He was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, the eldest son of George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan, and Kaitlin Dawson. Lucan was an evacuee during the Second World War but returned to attend Eton College, and served with the Coldstream Guards in West Germany from 1953 to 1955. Having developed a taste for gambling, he played backgammon and bridge, and was an early member of the exclusive group of rich British gamblers at the Clermont Club. Lucan's losses often exceeded his winnings, yet he left his job at a London-based merchant bank and became a professional gambler. He was known as Lord Bingham from April 1949 until January 1964, during his father's lifetime.
Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham, 7th Earl of Winchilsea PC was an English Tory politician and peer who supported the Hanoverian Succession in 1714.
John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough,, styled Earl of Sunderland from 1822 to 1840 and Marquess of Blandford from 1840 to 1857, was a British Conservative cabinet minister, politician, peer, and nobleman. He was the paternal grandfather of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.
Berkeley Square is a garden square in the West End of London. It is one of the best known of the many squares in London, located in Mayfair in the City of Westminster. It was laid out in the mid 18th century by the architect William Kent, and originally extended further south. The gardens' very large London Plane trees are among the oldest in central London, planted in 1789.
Sir James Michael Goldsmith was a French-British financier, tycoon and politician who was a member of the Goldsmith family.
John Victor Aspinall was an English zoo and casino owner. From upper class beginnings he used gambling to move to the centre of British high society in the 1960s. He was born in Delhi during the British Raj, and was a citizen of the United Kingdom.
Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh was the eleventh child and fourth daughter of King George III and his consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
Princess Amelia Sophia Eleonore of Great Britain was the second daughter of King George II of Great Britain and Queen Caroline. Born in Hanover she moved to England when her grandfather, George I became king. Amelia lived a solitary existence and died in 1786 and was the last surviving child of her parents.
John George Pearson was an English novelist and an author of biographies, notably of Ian Fleming, of the Sitwells, and of the Kray twins.
Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey was a British courtier and Lady of the Bedchamber, one of the more notorious of the many mistresses of King George IV when he was Prince of Wales, "a scintillating society woman, a heady mix of charm, beauty, and sarcasm".
Bede Evelyn Dominick Elwes was an English portrait painter whose much publicised elopement with an heiress in 1957 created an international scandal.
Crown London Aspinalls is a private gambling club, established by John Aspinall in London since the 1960s. Crown London Aspinalls is currently at 27–28 Curzon Street, Mayfair, London.
Annabel's is a private members club at 46 Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London.
The Mayfair Set, subtitled Four Stories about the Rise of Business and the Decline of Political Power, is a BBC television documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis. It explores the decline of Britain as a world power, the proliferation of asset stripping in the 1970s, and how buccaneer capitalists helped to shape the climate of the Thatcher years, by focusing on Colonel David Stirling, Jim Slater, Sir James Goldsmith and Tiny Rowland—members of London's elite Clermont Club in the 1960s. It won a BAFTA Award for Best Factual Series or Strand in 2000.
William Henry Fortescue, 1st Earl of Clermont, KP, was an Irish peer and politician.
George Finch-Hatton FRS was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1772 to 1784.
Lucan is a two-part British television drama, starring Rory Kinnear, Christopher Eccleston and Catherine McCormack, portraying the disappearance in 1974 of the Earl of Lucan, following the murder of his children's nanny. Written by Jeff Pope and directed by Adrian Shergold, it was broadcast in December 2013.
Dorothy Boyle, Countess of Burlington and Countess of Cork was a British noble and court official, as well as a caricaturist and portrait painter. Several of her studies and paintings were made of her daughters. Chatsworth House, which descended through her daughter Charlotte, holds a collection of 24 of her works of art.
Anne Finch, Countess of Nottingham, formerly Anne Hatton, was the second wife of Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham, and the mother of Daniel Finch, 8th Earl of Winchilsea and 3rd Earl of Nottingham.
Lady Isabella Finch was a Lady of the Bedchamber to the Hanoverian Princess Amelia. She never married and wielded political power.