Beefsteak Club

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The present-day Beefsteak Club, Irving Street, London

Beefsteak Club is 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 Beefsteak Club founded in 1876 still meets in Irving Street, London.

The first beefsteak club was founded about 1705 in London by actor Richard Estcourt and others in the arts and politics. This club flourished for less than a decade. The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks was established in 1735 by another performer, John Rich, at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, where he was then manager, and George Lambert, his scenic artist, along with about two dozen members of the theatre and arts community (Samuel Johnson joined in 1780). The society became much celebrated, and these men of the arts were joined by royalty, statesmen and great soldiers: in 1785, the the Prince of Wales joined. At the weekly meetings, the members wore a blue coat and buff waistcoat with brass buttons bearing a gridiron motif and the words "Beef and liberty". The steaks and baked potatoes were accompanied by port or porter. After dinner, the cook collected the money, and the rest of the evening was given up to noisy revelry. The club met almost continuously until 1867. It was re-formed for a time later that century by Sir Henry Irving, and again in 1966, and it still exists.

Other "Beefsteak Clubs" included one in Dublin from 1749, for performers and politicians, and several in London and elsewhere. Many used the gridiron as their symbol, and some are even named after it, including the Gridiron Club of Washington D.C. In 1876, a Beefsteak Club was formed that became an essential after-theatre club for the bohemian theatre set, including W. S. Gilbert, and still meets today on Irving Street (pictured at right).

History

Early beefsteak clubs

The first known beefsteak club (the Beef-Stake Club, Beef-Steak Clubb or Honourable Beef-Steak Club) seems to have been that founded either in 1705 in London.[1] It was started by some seceders from the Whiggish Kit-Cat Club, "desirous of proving substantial beef was as prolific a food for an English wit as pies and custards for a Kit-cat beau."[2] The actor Richard Estcourt was its "providore" or president 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. This was the first beefsteak club known to have used a gridiron as its badge.[2] In 1708, Dr. William King dedicated his poem "Art of Cookery" to "the Honourable Beef Steak Club". His poem includes the couplet:

He that of Honour, Wit and Mirth partakes,
May be a fit Companion o'er Beef-steaks.[1]

The club originally met at the Imperial Phiz public house in Old Jewry in the City of London, but finding that venue not private enough, it ceased to meet there, and by 1709 it was not known "whether they have healed the breach and returned into the Kit-Cat community [or] … remove from place to place to prevent discovery."[3] Joseph Addison referred to the club in The Spectator in 1711 as still functioning. The historian Colin J. Horne suggests that the club may have come to an end with the death of Estcourt in 1712.[1] There was also a "Rump-Steak or Liberty Club" (also called "The Patriots Club") of London which was in existence in 1733-34 whose members were "eager in opposition to Sir Robert Walpole".[4]

Sublime Society of Beef Steaks

The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks was established in 1735 by John Rich at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, of which he was then manager. One version of its origin has it that the Earl of Peterborough, supping one night with Rich in his private room, was so delighted with the steak Rich grilled him that he suggested a repetition of the meal the next week. Another version is that George Lambert, the scene-painter at the theatre, was often too busy to leave the theatre and "contented himself with a beefsteak broiled upon the fire in the painting-room." His visitors so enjoyed sharing this dish that they set up the Sublime Society. William and Robert Chambers, writing in 1869, favour the second version, noting that Peterborough was not one of the original members.[2] A third version, favoured by the historian of the society, Walter Arnold, is that the society was formed out of the regular dinners shared at the theatre by Rich and Lambert, consisting of hot steak dressed by Rich himself, accompanied by "a bottle of old port from the tavern hard by."[5] Whatever the details of its genesis, the society was founded by Rich in 1735, with Rich and Lambert listed as the first two of its twenty-four founding members.[6] From the outset, the society strove to avoid the term "club", but the shorter "Beefsteak Club" was soon used by many as an informal alternative.[7]

1793 press report – "Club" and "Society" are used interchangeably

The early core of the society was made up of actors, artists, men of wit and song, among them William Hogarth (a founder-member), David Garrick (possibly),[n 1] John Wilkes (elected 1754), Samuel Johnson (1780), and John Philip Kemble (1805).[9] The society soon became much celebrated and these men of the arts were joined by noblemen, royalty, statesmen and great soldiers: in 1785, the Prince of Wales joined, and later his brothers the Dukes of Clarence and Sussex became members.[9]

Meetings were held every Saturday between November and June. All members were required to wear the society's uniform – a blue coat and buff waistcoat with brass buttons. The buttons bore a gridiron motif and the words "Beef and liberty". The steaks were served on hot pewter plates, with onions and baked potatoes, and were accompanied by port or porter. The only second course offered was toasted cheese. After dinner, the tablecloth was removed, the cook collected the money, and the rest of the evening was given up to noisy revelry.[10]

The society met at Covent Garden until the fire of 1808, when it moved first to the Bedford Coffee House, and thence the following year to the Old Lyceum Theatre. On the burning of the Lyceum in 1830, "The Steaks" met again in the Bedford Coffee House until 1838, when the Theatre reopened, and a large room there was allotted to the club. These meetings were held till the society ceased to exist in 1867. Its decline in its last twenty or so years was due to changing fashion: many of its members were no longer free on Saturdays, being either engaged in events in London's social season or else away from London at weekends, something much encouraged by the opening of railways.[11] The customary time for dinner had also changed. The society moved its dinner time forward to 4.00 p.m. in 1808, to 6.00 p.m. in 1833 and to 7.00 p.m. in 1861, and finally to 8.00 p.m. in 1866, but the change inconvenienced the members who preferred the old timing, and did not attract new members.[12] Moreover, in Victorian England its Georgian heartiness and ritual no longer appealed.[13] By 1867 the society had only eighteen members, and the average attendance at dinners had dwindled to two.[14] The club was wound up in 1867, and its assets were auctioned at Christie's, raising a little over £600.[15]

Other 18th and 19th century clubs

Thomas Sheridan founded a "Beefsteak Club" in Dublin at the Theatre Royal in 1749, and of this Peg Woffington was president. According to William and Robert Chambers, writing in 1869, "it could hardly be called a club at all, seeing all expenses were defrayed by Manager Sheridan, who likewise invited the guests – generally peers and members of parliament … Such weekly meetings were common to all theatres, it being a custom for the principal performers to dine together every Saturday and invite 'authors and other geniuses' to partake of their hospitality'."[2]

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's return from exile in France in 1768. John Timbs wrote in 1872 of a "Beef-Steak Club" which met at the Bell Tavern, Church Row, Houndsditch, and was instituted by "Mr Beard, Mr Dunstall, Mr Woodward, Stoppalear, Bencroft, Gifford etc".[16] It is not clear if the The Club in Ivy-Lane, of which Dr Johnson was a member, was a "Beef-Steak Club", but it met at a famous beef-steak house.[n 2]

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

Irving Street club

Sir Henry Irving revived the traditions of the society on an informal basis during his ownership of the New Lyceum until his death, holding regular dinners. The society was again re-formed in 1966 and meets in the Boisdale club and restaurant in Pimlico and, annually, at White's Club.[citation needed]

The Beefsteak Club that still meets in London at 9 Irving Street, off Leicester Square, was founded in 1876 in rooms above the Folly Theatre, in King William IV Street. It became an essential after-theatre club for the bohemian theatre set, such as J. L. Toole, Henry Irving, John Hare, W. H. Kendal, F. C. Burnand, Henry Labouchère, W. S. Gilbert, Corney Grain and two hundred of their peers.[19] It soon moved to Green Street.[20] Gilbert, who could not bring himself to attend his own plays' opening nights, often waited at the club until the premieres were over.[20] Members of that club occasionally performed amateur plays for their own amusement and to raise funds for charities. In 1878, they performed The Forty Thieves written by members Robert Reece, Gilbert, Burnand, and Henry J. Byron.[21]

See also

Notes and references

Notes
  1. ^ Garrick is not included in Arnold's supposedly complete list of members, but is included in the Society's anthem printed by Arnold (p. 144). The historian Ian McIntyre states unequivocally that Garrick was not a member.[8]
  2. ^ "Johnson had, in the winter of 1749, formed a club that met weekly at the King's Head, a famous beef-steak house in Ivy Lane, near St. Paul's, every Tuesday evening. Thither he constantly resorted with a disposition to please and be pleased. Our conversations seldom began till after a supper so very solid and substantial as led us to think that with him it was a dinner."[17]
References
  1. ^ a b c Horne, Colin J., "Notes on Steele and the Beef-Steak Club", The Review of English Studies, July 1945, pp. 239–44
  2. ^ a b c d Chambers's Journal, 5 June 1869, p. 353
  3. ^ Ned Ward, quoted in Timbs, p. 110
  4. ^ Timbs, p. 136
  5. ^ Arnold, p. 2
  6. ^ Arnold, p. xi
  7. ^ Arnold, p. 2
  8. ^ McIntyre, Ian, "Young pretenders to the throne", The Times, 26 November 1998, p. 42
  9. ^ a b Arnold, pp. xvii–xxi
  10. ^ Hawkins, Frederick, "The Beefsteak Room at the Old Lyceum", English Illustrated Magazine, September 1890, p. 871
  11. ^ Arnold, p. 34
  12. ^ Arnold, p. 35
  13. ^ Arnold, p. 36
  14. ^ Arnold, p. 39
  15. ^ "Sale of the Beefsteak Club", Orchestra, April 1869, p.61
  16. ^ Timbs (1872) gives no date for this club but cites Memoirs of Charles Lee Lewis, vol ii. p. 196 as his source.
  17. ^ Hawkins, John, 1787, Life of Samuel Johnson, quoted in Hill, George Birkbeck, Note 562 to 1887 edition of James Boswell's Life of Johnson.
  18. ^ Mount, Ferdinand "Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes", The Sunday Times, 27 April 2008
  19. ^ Elliot, p. 109
  20. ^ a b Stedman, p. 138
  21. ^ Hollingshead, John. Good Old Gaiety: An Historiette & Remembrance, pp. 39–41 (1903), London: Gaity Theatre Co

Sources

  • Public Domain 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)
  • Allen, Robert J., The Clubs of Augustan London 1933 Harvard, pp. 137–145
  • Arnold, Walter (1871). Life and Death of the Sublime Society of Steaks. London: Bradbury, Evans and Co.
  • Chetwood, William, A General History of the Stage, Dublin 1749, p. 143
  • Obituary, Lord Michael Pratt, 21 September 2007 The Daily Telegraph
  • Elliot, William Gerald. Amateur Clubs and Actors (1898) London: E. Arnold
  • New York Times, Thirty Years of Gridiron Club Dinners, 24 October 1915
  • Rogers, Ben, Beef and Liberty, Roast Beef, John Bull and the English Nation, p. 137
  • Stedman, Jane W. (1996). W. S. Gilbert, A Classic Victorian & His Theatre. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816174-3.
  • Timbs, John (1872). Clubs and Club Life in London. London: John Camden Hotten.

Further reading

  • 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 Irving Society

External links

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