List of gentlemen's clubs in Canada

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The following list is of gentlemen's clubs that operated in Canada. A gentlemen's club is a private social club that serves as a place for men to dine, drink, read, and socialize. They originated in the 18th century as a type of British social institution and flourished particularly in the 19th century. Around 50 such clubs operated at one time or other in Canada, though by the turn of the millennium, virtually none continued to exist in this form.

Contents

History

As a part of the British Empire, Canadians adopted the gentlemen's club tradition enthusiastically. Most of Canada's clubs were founded during the Victorian era and used similar rules to their British counterparts, including: a proscription on discussions about politics and religion, silence in reading rooms, and a ban on smoking in dining areas. Moreover, clubs oriented towards businessmen prohibited briefcases in dining rooms. [1]

Wallace Clement described Canada's gentlemen's clubs as "one of the key institutions which form an interacting and active national upper class." [1] Clement listed the six most important clubs as the National, York, Toronto, Mount Royal, Saint James's, and Rideau. [1] Meanwhile, Peter C. Newman stated that the clubs that "really count" were the York, Toronto, National, Mount Royal, Saint James's, Rideau, and Vancouver.

By the 1970s, gentlemen's clubs had started to decline in prestige and importance. Several factors contributed to this decline. During the preceding decade, Canada had begun to abandon its British culture, traditions, and symbols. [2] Bryan Palmer described this process as a shift in "self-conception away from an age-old attachment to empire, in which comfort could be taken from a prideful understanding of keeping alive European traditions." [3] As quintessentially British institutions, gentlemen's clubs suffered from this transformation. Another reason was that the baby boomer generation that had come of age during the countercultural revolution was skeptical of authority, tradition, and formality, [4] all of which gentlemen's clubs embodied. Consequently, baby boomers joined private clubs in far smaller numbers than preceding generations. Finally, changes to Canadian tax law forbade members from writing off club dues as business expenses.

In his 1975 tome The Canadian Establishment , author and journalist Peter C. Newman devoted a chapter to gentlemen's clubs, entitled "Clubland on the Rocks." Newman described the generational change that was leading to the decline in clubs, saying,

Not so very long ago, at lunchtime on any given weekday, the nation's Establishment conducted most of its charitable, commercial, and political liaisons inside club dining rooms. This is no longer true. The new-breed wheelers are dealing downtown in the smart places where they can sniff out the fast money, looking past their luncheon companions' shoulders to see who's breaking bread with their competitors. [5]

In the 1970s, many clubs began to struggle financially. These financial difficulties, coupled with pressure from feminists who opposed all-male clubs, led all of Canada's gentlemen's clubs to cease operating as such and begin accepting female members. During the following decades many clubs continued to struggle attracting new members.

By 1998, in his third volume of the Canadian Establishment series, Newman concluded that Canada's clubs had faded into total irrelevancy. In a chapter entitled "Boarding Up the Private Clubs," he wrote,

the classic men's dining clubs have become relics of another age. Like the Old Establishment adherents whom they fed, housed and cosseted, there institutions depended on exclusivity for their justification. Now that the Establishment is open to anybody, regardless of their pedigree or school tie, the clubs that perpetuated those notions have lost their reason for existence. To be clubbable means precisely nothing. [6]

Since the 1980s, many clubs have closed, merged, or reformed. Today, Canada's former gentlemen's clubs function mostly as business and networking institutions and provide themed event nights for their members. Along with moving to a mixed-sex format, most clubs have adopted more casual dress and behavioural codes. [7] [8]

List of clubs

NameProvinceCityEstablishedBecame mixed-sexOriginal affiliationFate
400 ClubAlbertaCalgary19511989 Petroleum industry Closed in 2002 [9]
Albany Club OntarioToronto18821979 Conservative Party
Arts and Letters Club of Toronto OntarioToronto19081985Arts
Assiniboia ClubSaskatchewanRegina18821988noneClosed in 2007 [10]
Beaver Club QuebecMontreal1785 Fur trade Closed in 1827
British Public Schools ClubBritish ColumbiaVictoria1926- Public schools Closed in 1978
British Public Schools Club of VancouverBritish ColumbiaVancouver1932- Public schools Closed in 1968
Calgary Petroleum Club AlbertaCalgary19481989 [11] Petroleum industry
Carleton ClubManitobaWinnipeg19011991noneClosed in 1995 [12]
Chinook ClubAlbertaLethbridge1901199?noneClosed
Club Saint-DenisQuebecMontreal1874198?FrancophoneClosed in 2009; [13] reopened in 2023
Cypress ClubAlbertaMedicine Hat190319??none
Edmonton ClubAlbertaEdmonton18991986noneClosed in 1994
Edmonton Petroleum ClubAlbertaEdmonton19501987 Petroleum industry Closed in 2015; reorganised in 2020 as the Edmonton City Club [14]
Engineers' ClubOntarioToronto1895198?EngineeringMerged into the Ontario Club in 1992 [15]
Frontenac ClubOntarioKingston1907-noneClosed in 1931; Frontenac Club Inn opened in 2000
Garrison ClubQuebecQuebec City18791984 Army Merged in 1984 with the Cercle Universitaire to become the Cercle de la Garrison
Halifax Club Nova ScotiaHalifax18621986 [16] none
Hamilton ClubOntarioHamilton18731986 [17] none
High River ClubAlbertaHigh River1906-none
Laurentian ClubOntarioOttawa1904noneClosed in 2000
London ClubOntarioLondon18801993none
Manitoba Club ManitobaWinnipeg18741991none
Montefiore ClubManitobaWinnipeg1910 Jewish Closed
Montefiore Club QuebecMontreal18802005 Jewish Closed in 2010
Mount Royal Club QuebecMontreal18991990 [18] none
Mount Stephen Club QuebecMontreal1926198?noneClosed in 2011 [19]
National Club OntarioToronto18741992 Canada First
Niagara Falls ClubOntarioNiagara Falls1948none
Ontario Club OntarioToronto19091985 Liberal Party Merged into the National Club in 2010
Ottawa ClubOntarioOttawa1888-noneClosed ca. 1910 [20]
Pacific ClubBritish ColumbiaVictoria1885-noneClosed in 1966
Primrose ClubOntarioToronto1907 Jewish Closed ca. 1996
Quadra Club British ColumbiaVancouver1922-noneClosed in 1940; reopened as a tavern in 1941 [21]
Ranchmen's Club AlbertaCalgary18921993 [22] none
Renfrew ClubAlbertaCalgary1929-noneMerged into Calgary Petroleum Club in 1950
Rideau Club OntarioOttawa18651979none
Rossland ClubBritish ColumbiaRossland1896-noneClosed in 1969 [23]
Saint James's Club QuebecMontreal18571979none
Saskatoon Club SaskatchewanRegina19071989none
St Catharines ClubOntarioSt. Catharines18781985none
Terminal City Club British ColumbiaVancouver18921991 [24] none
Toronto Club OntarioToronto18351993 [25] none
Union ClubNew BrunswickSaint John18841936none
Union Club of British ColumbiaBritish ColumbiaVictoria18791994none
United Services ClubQuebecMontreal1922- Military Closed in 1994
University Club of Montreal QuebecMontreal19061988University graduates
University Club of TorontoOntarioToronto19061988 [26] University graduates
University Club of VancouverBritish ColumbiaVancouver1911-University graduatesMerged into the Vancouver Club in 1986
Vancouver Club British ColumbiaVancouver18931993none
Waterloo ClubOntarioWaterloo19132015 [27] none
Western ClubBritish ColumbiaVancouver1901-noneMerged with part of the University Club to form the Quadra Club in 1922
Windsor ClubOntarioWindsor19031985 [28] none
York Club OntarioToronto19091992none

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Clement, Wallace. The Canadian Corporate Elite: An Analysis of Economic Power. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975: p. 247.
  2. ↑ See, Christian P. Champion, The Strange Demise of British Canada: The Liberals and Canadian Nationalism, 1964-68, Toronto: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010.
  3. ↑ Palmer, Bryan D. Canada's 1960: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009, p. 5.
  4. ↑ Epstein, Barbara. "Anarchism and the Anti-Globalization Movement." Monthly Review, vol. 43 no. 4, pp. 1-14.
  5. ↑ Newman, Peter C. 1975. The Canadian Establishment, Volume 1 . Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. p. 364.
  6. ↑ Peter C. Newman, Titans: How the New Canadian Establishment Seized Power, (Viking, 1998), 96.
  7. ↑ Marotte, Bertrand. "Montreal's old clubs see new life with hip set; Anglo havens widen membership reach." Globe and Mail, 19 February 2007.
  8. ↑ Stanley, Adam. "Private clubs let go of old rules to attract new clientele." Globe and Mail, 1 October 2019, p. B6.
  9. ↑ Scotton, Geoffrey. "Calgary's 400 Club likely faces receivership." Calgary Herald, 4 September 2002, p. D1.
  10. ↑ Johnstone, Bruce. "Regina institution to close Dec. 31." Regina Leader-Post, 19 December 2007, p. D1.
  11. ↑ Ferguson, Eva. "Petroleum Club caves in; women everywhere, almost." Calgary Herald, 30 May 1989, p. A1.
  12. ↑ Martin Cash, "Carleton Club closes doors," Winnipeg Free Press (29 July 1995), A10.
  13. ↑ "La fin d'une époque." Radio-Canada, 17 July 2009.
  14. ↑ Cook, Dustin. "Petroleum Club moves Downtown under new name." Edmonton Sun, 19 February 2020, p. A8,
  15. ↑ Alastair Dow, "Clubs' merger a Toronto milestone," Toronto Star, (28 November 1992), C2.
  16. ↑ "Male bastion gives ground." Globe and Mail, 31 January 1986, p. A5.
  17. ↑ Kenny, Amy. "The Hamilton Club: not an 'old boys' club' anymore." Hamilton Spectator, 9 September 2015, p. HB8.
  18. ↑ Stikeman, H. Heward. The Mount Royal Club, 1899-1999. Montreal: Price-Patterson, 1999: pp. 96-97.
  19. ↑ Lampert, Allison. "Mount Stephen Club to close." The Gazette, 19 October 2011, p. B1.
  20. ↑ Christopher McCreery, Savoir Faire, Savoir Vivre: Rideau Club 1865–2015, (Dundurn Press, 2015), 22.
  21. ↑ Jack Wasserman, The Vancouver Sun (15 June 1965), p. 25.
  22. ↑ Crawford, Anne. "Club open to women - finally." Calgary Herald, 18 February 1993, p. B6.
  23. ↑ Bignell, Tyler. 30 March 2022. "The Rossland Club: The Rise and Fall of an Exclusive Gentlemen's Club." Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre.
  24. ↑ "Men's club relents." Financial Post, 4 June 1991, p. 6.
  25. ↑ Kastner, Susan. "Men's clubby inner sanctum creaks open to admit women." Toronto Star, 27 June 1993, p. A1.
  26. ↑ Cameron, Stevie. "Well, at least the bar will remain sacrosanct at the University Club." Globe and Mail, 4 August 1988, p. A2.
  27. ↑ Thompson, Catherine. "A new era: Waterloo club admits first female member." Waterloo Region Record, 2 October 2015, p. A1.
  28. ↑ Severn, Ken A. The Windsor Club: An Historical Perspective. Windsor: Walkerville Publishing, 2012: p. 43.
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