Beefsteak Club

Beefsteak Club, the name, nickname and historically common misnomer applied by sources to several 18th and 19th century clubs that celebrated the beefsteak as a symbol of patriotic and often Whig concepts of liberty and prosperity.

The first known beefsteak club (The "Beef-Stake Club", "Beef-Steak Clubb" or "Honourable Beef-Steak Club") seems to have been that founded either shortly before 1705 or in 1709 in London. Richard Estcourt, actor, was steward and its most popular member. William Chetwood in "A General History of the Stage" is the much quoted source that the "chief Wits and great men of the nation" were members of this club. Famously it is also the first beefsteak club known to have used a gridiron as its badge.

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

More famous, however, was "The Sublime Society of Steaks" which 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 persons of note. 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, London 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, William IV Street.

Many beefsteak clubs of the 18th and 19th centuries have used the traditional grilling gridiron as their symbol and some are even named after it. The Gridiron Club of Oxford, England was founded in 1884, and the Gridiron Club of Washington D.C. was founded the year after. These two clubs still exist.

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
• Rogers, ben, Beef and Liberty, Roast Beef, John Bull and the English Nation, p.137
• Obituary, "Lord Michael Pratt", Daily Telegraph, September 21, 2007
• "Thirty Years of Gridiron Club Dinners", New York Times, October 24, 1915
• Chetwood, William, "A General History of the Stage", Dublin 1749, p.143

External links

• History of the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks