Carlton Club

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The Carlton Club in Pall Mall (19th century photo)
The Carlton building since 1943, formerly Arthur's Club

The Carlton Club is one of the most renowned gentlemen’s clubs in London . Founded in 1832, it brings together politicians from the Tories and later the Conservative Party . Its members include Benjamin Disraeli , Robert Peel , Winston Churchill , Harold Macmillan and Margaret Thatcher .

The clubhouse was located on the eponymous Carlton Terraces for the first three years . In 1835 they moved into the splendid building on Pall Mall, designed by Robert Smirke . After its destruction in 1940 as part of an air raid on London during World War II , the company finally turned to 69, St James's Street.

After it was founded, the club actually functioned as the headquarters of the Conservative party for several decades. As a traditional social meeting place for conservatives, the club also served several times in the 19th century as a starting point for parliamentary initiatives by conservative backbenchers. The club expanded so quickly in the mid-19th century that in order to maintain a membership limit, an offshoot in the form of the Junior Carlton Club was established. In November 1911, the new chairman Andrew Bonar Law was elected at a short-term meeting of the Conservative House of Commons at the Carlton Club . In March 1921, after Bonar Law's health-related retirement from politics, Austen Chamberlain was elected as his successor in the club. In 1922, at the now famous meeting at the Carlton Club, backbenchers of the Conservative Party prepared the decision to distance themselves from party leader Austen Chamberlain and to leave the coalition led by David Lloyd George .

In 1977, former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan assumed the presidency of the Carlton Club, of which he had been a member since 1929. After a few months he merged the Carlton Club with the Junior Carlton Club in order to secure the future financial existence of the Carlton Club. of the association with the youth organization, the Junior Carlton Club . On June 25, 1990, an IRA- attributed bomb attack was committed on the club , in which the porter was killed.

To date, only men can actually acquire full membership at the Carlton. Women may receive an associated status, which is associated with lower contributions, but also does not entitle them to full use of the premises. Honorary membership is automatically offered to the respective chairman of the Conservative Party. Iain Duncan Smith declined honorary membership. Exceptionally, the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was an honorary and only full female member. The current chairman of the club is Thomas Galbraith, 2nd Baron Strathclyde .

Literary processing

In the modern comedy of John Galsworthy the Carlton Club is described in the opening scene. Here it is called the Snookes Club .

literature

  • Anthony Lejeune: The Gentlemen's Clubs of London. Wh Smith Publishing, London 1979. ISBN 0-8317-3800-6 .
  • Anthony Lejeune: The Gentlemen's Clubs of London. Stacey International, London 2012. ISBN 978-1-906768-20-1 .
  • Barry Phelps: Power and the Party: A History of the Carlton Club, 1832-1982. Wembley Press, Reading, 1982.
  • Charles Petrie , Alistair Cooke: The Carlton Club, 1832-2007. Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 2007.
  • Seth Alexander Thévoz: Club Government: How the Early Victorian World Was Ruled from London Clubs. IB Tauris, London 2018, ISBN 978-1-78453-818-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.carltonclub.co.uk/the-club/history/
  2. ^ Robert Blake: The Conservative Party from Peel to Major. Faber and Faber, London 1997, p. 137.
  3. ↑ DR Thorpe: Supermac - The Life of Harold Macmillan. Chatto & Windus, London 2010, p. 605.

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 23 "  N , 0 ° 8 ′ 23"  W.