Gentlemen's Clubs
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A Coffee Room, by Thomas Rowlandson, circa 1790's.


During the 19th century an English gentleman was often judged by the club, or clubs to which he belonged. In the early days it was the coffee and chocolate houses of London where they met. Coffee houses started to appear in London not long after coffee's introduction to England in 1652. But it was not just the beverage which was the attraction, but the opportunity to use the local as a place to conduct business. Whether a man was was a pickpocket, or a lord, there was a coffee house to suit his tastes. It was a place where he could transact business, read the paper, entertain a mistress, or receive letters. In the case of shadier characters, it was a place to meet their fellow conspirators to discuss the next job, or in the case of touts, or bonnets it was place to meet and lure unsuspecting on flats into a game of chance.

The problem with public coffee houses however, was
-the public interrupting and disturbing the transactions of the elite.

"As you have a hodge-bodge of drinks, such too is your company, for each man seems a leveler*, and ranks and files himself as he lists, without regard to degrees or order; so that often you may see a silly fop and a worshipful justice, a griping rook and a grave citizen, a worthy lawyer and an errant pickpocket, a reverend non-conformist and a canting mountebank, all blended together to compose a medley of impertinence."
-The Character of a Coffee-House, 1673.

Thus, during the mid-1700's more exclusive clubs began to replace coffee houses in the fashionable neighborhood around St. James's Palace. White's Club was among the first, originally opening in 1693 as a chocolate house. The clubs of St. James became an important part of upper class English life, governed by their own rules of conduct and honor. The purpose behind most of the clubs was not gambling, but for some of them it was one of the primary entertainments. And they bet on anything and everything. A surviving betting book from White's records that Lord Alvanly bet a Mr. Talbot 100 guineas against 10 that a certain couple would not be married in the next eighteen months.2 A week later Alvanly apparently was also placing wagers on the life spans of various of acquaintances.

"Of the eighth hundred members not more than seventy were really "playmen;" that is to say, men who played games of chance - hazard for instance. Many of them would not even touch a card, others played at whist or games of science, but declined partaking in the ammusments of the dice-box. The game of hazard was played in a small front room of the second floor, or right wing of the building. That room was never shown to any visitors, but such as had obtained from a member a ticket to survey those truely magnificent premises."
-Rogue's Progress

Almack's Club

Brook's Club

White's Club

Crockford's Club

1Leveler:
2Elegant Madness