The United University Club was a London gentlemen's club, founded in 1821. It occupied the purpose-built University Club House, at 1, Suffolk Street, London, England, from 1826 until 1971.
The club was founded at a meeting held at the Thatched House Tavern on 30 June 1821 and held its first Annual General Meeting at Willis's Rooms on 27 April 1822, under the chairmanship of Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh. [1]
It was agreed that the club would admit no more than one thousand members and former members of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, five hundred from each. This limitation remained in place for more than one hundred years. [1] As a result, only eight years after the club's foundation, its waiting list was so long that a second club was formed, called the Oxford and Cambridge Club. [1]
The initial entrance-fee was set at twenty-five guineas and the annual subscription at six guineas. [2] By 1879, these figures had increased to thirty guineas and eight guineas. [3] It was reported in Dickens's Dictionary of London (1879) that "The members elect by ballot, one black ball in ten excludes". [3]
The club's premises, called the University Club House, were at 1, Suffolk Street, London near Trafalgar Square. [1] They were designed by the architect William Wilkins RA and by his colleague J. P. Gandy and opened on 13 February 1826. [2] Wilkins was also the architect of the nearby National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, finished in 1838, and of the main buildings of Downing College, Cambridge. [4]
The club was re-built on a grander scale in 1906, with Reginald Blomfield as architect. [5] In 1906, friezes by Henry Alfred Pegram RA (1862–1937) were also commissioned. [6] An extension was added on the north side of the building in 1924 (again designed by Blomfield) and another extension on the east side in 1939–40. [5]
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner described the development as "Sir Reginald Blomfield’s essay in Champs Elysées style". [7]
A third club for members of the two Universities, founded in 1864 and called the New University Club, had its rooms at 57 St James's Street. This amalgamated with the United University Club in 1938. [1]
After the Second World War, the gentlemen's clubs of London fell into a decline, and in 1971 the United University Club closed its premises. [5] In March 1972, it was merged with the Oxford and Cambridge Club. [5] The combined club was initially called the 'United Oxford and Cambridge University Club' and in 1972–73 was housed at the University Club House, but thereafter it occupied the club house further down Pall Mall designed for the Oxford and Cambridge Club in 1836. The lease of the University Club House was surrendered to the ground landlord, the Crown Estate. [8] The merged University club reverted to the name "Oxford and Cambridge Club" in 2001. [1]
Number One Suffolk Street was occupied from 1973 until 1980 by the bankers Coutts & Co., from 1980 to 1997 by the British School of Osteopathy, and since 1998 as the London Centre of the University of Notre Dame. The Centre enables the Colleges of Arts & Letters, Business Administration, Science, Engineering and the Law School to develop their own programs in London. [9]
The Treasurer of the Household is a member of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The position is usually held by one of the government deputy Chief Whips in the House of Commons. The current holder of the office is Mark Tami MP.
The Carlton Club is a private members' club in the St James's area of London, England. It was the original home of the Conservative Party before the creation of Conservative Central Office. Membership of the club is by nomination and election only.
Sir Frederick Pollock, 3rd Baronet PC, FBA was an English jurist best known for his History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, written with F.W. Maitland, and his lifelong correspondence with US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was a member of the Cambridge Apostles.
Edward Cardwell, 1st Viscount Cardwell, was a prominent British politician in the Peelite and Liberal parties during the middle of the 19th century. He is best remembered for his tenure as Secretary of State for War between 1868 and 1874 and, with William Ewart Gladstone's support, the introduction of the Cardwell Reforms. The goal was to centralise the power of the War Office, abolish purchase of officers' commissions, and to create reserve forces stationed in Britain by establishing short terms of service for enlisted men.
William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher, PC, known as Sir William Brett between 1868 and 1883, was a British lawyer, judge, and Conservative politician. He was briefly Solicitor-General under Benjamin Disraeli and then served as a justice of the Court of Common Pleas between 1868 and 1876, as a Lord Justice of Appeal between 1876 and 1883 and as Master of the Rolls. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Esher in 1885 and further honoured when he was made Viscount Esher on his retirement in 1897.
Frederic Herbert Maugham, 1st Viscount Maugham, was a British barrister and judge who was Lord Chancellor from March 1938 until September 1939.
George Child Villiers, 5th Earl of Jersey, GCH, PC, previously George Villiers and styled Viscount Villiers until 1805, was a British courtier and Conservative politician from the Villiers family.
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Sir George Herbert Murray was a British civil servant.
The St James's Club was a London gentlemen's club which operated between 1857 and 1978. It was founded by two leading diplomats and its members continued to be largely diplomats and authors. It was first established in Bennet Street, and after a brief spell in Mayfair, moved to 106 Piccadilly by 1868. In the final quarter of the twentieth century many gentlemen’s clubs of London suffered from declining membership, and in 1978 the St James's Club merged with Brooks's Club and vacated its premises.
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Francis John Savile Foljambe was a British Liberal Member of Parliament.
Edward Augustus Stratford, 2nd Earl of Aldborough, of Belan house, styled The Honourable from 1763 to 1777 and Viscount Amiens in the latter year, was an Irish peer, Whig politician, and member of the Noble House of Stratford. He sat in the Irish House of Commons between 1759 and 1777 and in the British House of Commons from 1774 to 1775.
Brooks's is a gentlemen's club in St James's Street, London. It is one of the oldest and most exclusive gentlemen's clubs in the world.
The Eldon Law Scholarship is a scholarship awarded to students from the University of Oxford who wish to study for the English Bar. Applicants must either have obtained a first class honours degree in the Final Honours School, or obtained a distinction on the BCL or MJur. It is a two-year scholarship presently funded at £9,000 a year.
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