Robin Hood Society

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The Robin Hood Society (Robin Hood Society) was an early form of the British debate clubs . The company met for the first time in 1613 in Sir Hugh Middleton's London home in the famous street " The Strand " in Westminster. The evening meetings, which only take place on Mondays, were moved from there to the tavern "The Robin Hood and Little John" on Butcher Row . The meetings of the Robin Hood Society was a as Baker headed designated (bakery) person, where everyone could talk about any topic as long as it did not exceed the speaking time of seven minutes. John Timbs describes the first form of Robin Hood society in his work on early London social clubs :

In the reign of George the Second there met, at a house in Essex-street, in the Strand, the Robin Hood Society, a debating club, at which, every Monday, questions were proposed, and any member might speak on them for seven minutes; after which the "baker", who presided with a hammer in his hand, summed up the arguments.

The Robin Hood Society was initially shaped by theological, free-thinking discussions. A well-known member during this orientation of the society was the Deist and writer Peter Annet (1693–1769). However, the discussions and the presence in public became increasingly political and philosophical. In the 18th century, the members of the society meet in the Grecian Coffee House in The Strand and the rooms of the Middle Temple , when the politician and writer Edmund Burke (1729–1797) also belonged to the society, who at that time consisted mainly of lawyers and politicians duration. The original London Robin Hood Society was dissolved in 1843.

In the 1730s, the London Robin Hood Society experienced a strong influx and achieved an important position in the formation of political opinion. In the course of the 18th century Robin Hood societies were formed in various other English cities, including Wolverhampton and Birmingham ; the latter subsidiary became known because it was during the reign of George III. from 1760 first allowed women to attend meetings. A Robin Hood Society also emerged in New York in the mid-18th century , which intervened in the political discourse of the American independence movement with its debates, particularly after the " Intolerable Acts " passed in 1774 as a result of the Boston Tea Party .

Robin Hood societies saw themselves exposed to frequent ridicule because of their often sterile discussions and also bizarre topics of debate. For some contemporaries they became synonymous with unnecessary chatter. In his novel Journey to Lisbon , Henry Fielding (1707–1754) mentions the London Robin Hood Society in connection with women's almanacs , both of which he saw at a similarly low intellectual level.

The Robin Hood societies became increasingly known on the European continent from the 1740s and also influenced the form of the debating societies here. Opinions were divided here, as Johannes Gräßli describes the "Robinhood Society" in his dictionary 1846 rather profane: "The English beer society , to which everyone who pays 6 pence has access."

swell

  • Anonymous: The History of the Robin Hood Society, in which the Origin of that Illustrous Body of Men is Traced , London 1764
  • John Timbs: Club Life of London: with anecdotes of the clubs, coffee houses, and taverns of the metropolis, during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries . London (Bentley) 1866. Reprinted as Clubs and Club Life in London , Detroit (Gale Research Company) 1967
  • Peter Clark: British Clubs and Societies 1580-1800. The Origins of an Associational World . (Oxford Studies in Social History) New York 2000 ISBN 0-19-820376-4 pp. 48f, 199

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Walter Thornbury: The Strand (southern tributaries) , Old and New London (Volume 3), London 1878, pp. 63-84.
  2. ↑ John Timbs, reprint 1967, p 168th
  3. ^ Leonard W. Cowie: Edmund Burke 1729-1797. A Bibliography , Greenwood Press 1994 ISBN 0-313-28710-4 p. 74.
  4. ↑ Peter Clark (2000), p. 199.
  5. ^ SE Wilmer: Debates at the Robin-Hood Society in the City of New-York, On Monday Night 19th July, 1774 . In: Theater, Society and the Nation: Staging American Identities , Cambridge University Press 2002 ISBN 0521802644 pp. 34-36.
  6. ^ Henry Fielding: Journey to Lisbon . In: H. Fielding: Complete Romane Volume IV, Munich (Hanser) 1965, p. 698
  7. ^ J. Vollmann (d. I. Johannes Gräßli): Burschicoses Dictionary , Ragaz 1846 p. 413.