Beefsteak Club

Beefsteak Club, the name, nickname and standard misnomer applied by sources to several clubs formed during the 18th and 19th centuries founded on the common theme of the beef steak.

The first known beef steak club (The "Beef-Stake Club" or "Honourable Beef-Steak Club") seems to have been that founded either shortly before 1705 or in 1709 with Richard Estcourt, the actor, as steward. Of this the chief wits and great men of the nation were members and its badge was a gridiron.

There was also “Rump-Steak Club” (also called “The Patriots Club”) which was in existence in 1734.

More famous, however, was "The Sublime Society of Steaks" was established in 1735 by John Rich at Covent Garden theatre, of which he was then manager. One version of its origin has it that Lord Peterborough supping one night with Rich in his private room, was so delighted with the steak the latter grilled him that he suggested a repetition of the meal the next week. From this started the Club, the members of which delighted to call themselves "The Steaks." Among them were William Hogarth, David Garrick, John Wilkes, and many other celebrities. The rendezvous was the theatre till the fire in 1808, when the club moved first to the Bedford Coffee House, and the next year to the Old Lyceum. In 1785 the Prince of Wales joined, and later his brothers the dukes of Clarence and Sussex became members.

On the burning of the Lyceum, "The Steaks" met again in the Bedford Coffee House till 1838, when the New Lyceum was opened, and a large room there was allotted the club. These meetings were held till the club ceased to exist in 1867. It has since re-formed and meets in the Boisdale restaurant in Pimlico and, annually, at White's Club.

Thomas Sheridan founded a Beefsteak Club in Dublin at the Theatre Royal in 1749, and of this Peg Woffington was president.

The “Liberty Beef Steak Club” sought to show solidarity with the radical John Wilkes MP and met at Appleby’s Tavern in Parliament Street for an unknown duration after Wilkes’ return exile in France in 1768.

The Beefsteak Club that currently meets in Irving Street, London was founded by John Lawrence Toole, the actor, in 1876, in rooms above the Folly Theatre.

Many beef steak clubs have used the traditional grilling gridiron as their symbol and some are even named by it. The Gridiron Club of Oxford, England was founded in 1884, and the Gridiron Club of Washington DC founded on year later..

See also

• J. Timbs, Clubs and Club Life in London (1873)
• Walter Arnold, Life and Death of the Sublime Society of Steaks (1871)
• Shelley, Henry C., "Inns and Taverns of Old London" (1909)
• Horne, Colin J. “Notes on Steele and the Beef-Steak Club”, The Review of English Studies, Vol. 21, No. 83 (Jul., 1945), pp. 239-244
• Town, Mr. "The Connoisseur". By Mr. Town, Critic and Censor-General (London, 1761), i, p. 153 and/or Issue 29, 6 June 1754
• Pick, John, "Irving’s Audience", Annual Lecture of the The Irving Society

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Robert J. Allen The Clubs of Augustan London 1933 Harvard, pps. 137-145
• Beef and Liberty, Roast Beef, John Bull and the English Nation by Ben Rogers, p.137
• Obituary, "Lord Michael Pratt", Daily Telegraph, September 21, 2007
• "Thirty Years of Gridiron Club Dinners", New York Times, October 24, 1915

External links

• History of the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks