John Mortimer's 'Rumpole of the Bailey' stories: The Sheridan Club
One of the best-known fictional London clubs is the Sheridan Club, from John Mortimer’s ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’ stories, about the misadventures of “an Old Bailey hack.” The Club had both literary and onscreen incarnations - Mortimer wrote each version, with the long-running TV series (1978-92) typically having each season adapted into a short story collection; and the depiction of the Club is consistent across both versions. (Mortimer also continued to write stories and novels, long after the TV series finished.) The Sheridan Club is only directly seen in 5 of the 44 episodes, but references to it are peppered throughout the series.
Real-life model
The Sheridan Club is very obviously meant to be a thinly-disguised Garrick Club, just as other well-known institutions of the legal world are littered throughout the stories, such as El Vino on Fleet Street being rendered as “Pommeroy's Wine Bar.” John Mortimer himself was a Garrick member, elected as a 37-year-old barrister in 1960, and remained so until his death in 2009.
The Garrick Club was founded in 1831, as a club where actors could meet with their patrons on equal terms. While the acting profession has provided it with its theme - embodied in its artwork, library, archives, publications and events - the Club’s membership has long been dominated by two professions, acting and the law. There are several reasons why the Club has proved so popular with lawyers from its very earliest years, ranging from their patronage of the arts, to its greater proximity to the Inns of Court than the heart of ‘Clubland’ in St. James’s. It is also worth noting that there had been numerous law-themed clubs over the years, but that with their gradual closure (alongside 90% of London clubs), the result has been for a great many judges, barristers and solicitors to coalesce around the Garrick. And as Robert Low has pointed out in his study of lawyers at the Garrick:
“some of our most distinguished lawyers over the past century and a half have been actors at heart.”
This Garrick dynamic, embedding many of the most prominent lawyers in what is ostensibly a theatrical club, is worth capturing, if we are to understand what Mortimer was lovingly satirising, as a long-term Garrick member.
And in its first onscreen appearance, Head of Chambers Guthrie Featherstone QC MP shows one of his barristers Claude Erskine-Brown around the Club, knowingly telling him:
“Yes, well, I said you might recognise the odd, er, actor.”
The Sheridan Club is clearly meant to be in the same vicinity as the Garrick in Covent Garden, with Rumpole walking from his chambers in Temple “up the Strand” to get to the Club.
The pink-and-cyan Sheridan Club tie worn in the fifth series.
The pink-and-cyan club tie sported by Sheridan Club members Samuel Ballard and Sir Robert Keith is suspiciously similar to the salmon-and-cucumber Garrick Club tie. By the final series, members of the Sheridan Club are seen donning actual Garrick Club ties.
By the seventh and final series, actual Garrick Club ties are being worn by Sheridan Club members.
A more unintentional degree of overlap is found in the number of actors playing lawyers frequenting the Sheridan Club in the Rumpole of the Bailey TV series, who later joined the Garrick in real life. Examples include Moray Watson (“His Honour Judge George Frobisher”) elected to the Garrick in 1982, Peter Blyth (“Samuel Ballard QC”) in 1985, Robin Bailey (“Mr. Justice Gerard Greaves”) in 1987, and Peter Bowles (“Guthrie Featherstone QC MP” - later “Mr. Justice Featherstone”) in 1988. Each remained a Garrick member until their respective deaths.
Even the name is a clue - like David Garrick, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was an 18th century actor-playwright, long dead by the 19th century heyday of clubs being established, yet bestowing a measure of respectability and culture in the use of his name. Indeed, Andrew Halliday argued in his account of how the Savage Club alighted on choosing minor poet Richard Savage as its namesake, that that it only came:
“after we had run the whole gamut of famous literary names of the modern period”
including Shakespeare, Johnson, Addison and Goldsmith. Presumably Sheridan had been dismissed, too.
The Club
We are first introduced to the Sheridan Club in ‘Rumpole and the Age for Retirement’, at the end of the second series (later adapted as the book Rumpole’s Last Case). Guthrie Featherstone QC MP tells Rumpole:
‘I'm giving a little dinner at my Club,’ Featherstone said, ‘the Sheridan. Most of Chambers will be there. Pencil it in, now. Like a good chap.’ He went, and I turned to Erskine-Brown for clarification.
‘What's the matter with our learned Head of Chambers?’ I asked him. ‘Has he come into money?’
When Rumpole first arrives at the Club, the description is fittingly gloomy, of a stuffy London club at its 1970s nadir:
On the following Thursday, I duly turned up with my wife and son at feeding-time at the Sheridan. We penetrated the somewhat chilly portals, passed a somnolent and sleepy uniformed figure in a glass cage, and went up a staircase to a fire-warmed hall
This is, of course, a fairly accurate description of the Garrick at the time, right down to the glass-caged porter’s lodge by the front entrance.
Despite the frosty atmosphere, the furnishings are comfortable, with Rumpole noting “a nearby and inviting settee.” The food is enjoyed, too, even if mealtimes can be laced with black humour, with the oldest member of Rumpole’s chambers, T. C. “Uncle Tom” Rowley, reminiscing:
‘The last time I remember having pheasant was in old Willoughby Grimes’ day. We had a Chambers dinner here and they dished us up pheasant…The occasion was Tiny Bunstead's being appointed Recorder of Swindon, which was considered a great honour at the time.’
‘Dinner's ready, Uncle Tom,’ Mrs. Erskine-Brown called from the table. But our oldest inhabitant insisted on finishing his story.
‘Well, poor old Tiny got one of those little pheasant bones stuck in his gullet and they rushed him to hospital. Death by suffocation! He never sat as a Recorder. Quite a disappointment to his wife...’
Rumpole (right) is wary of the generous club lunch offering of Featherstone (left).
In ‘Rumpole and the Judge’s Elbow’ (series four, adapted as the book Rumpole’s Last Case), we once again see Rumpole mistrusting Featherstone’s generous Sheridan Club hospitality. Featherstone, by now a judge, is seeking to ensure that Rumpole does not bring up in court any evidence which might personally compromise the judge. He lays on largesse for Rumpole with every course - while economising in his own menu choices, which are all the more incongruous when paired with the stellar wines shared by the two lawyers:
‘Oysters for Mr. Rumpole...and I'll take soup of the day. And Mr. Rumpole will be having the grouse and I-I'll settle for the Sheridan Club Hamburger. I thought a Chablis Premier Cru to start with and then, would the Chateau Talbot '77 appeal to you at all, Horace?’ The autumn sunlight filtered through the tall windows that badly needed cleaning and glimmered on the silver and portraits of old judges. Around us, actors hobnobbed with politicians and publishers. I sat in the Sheridan Club, amazed at the Judge's hospitality. As the waitress left us with my substantial order, I asked him if he'd won the pools.
The fourth series also gives us our first glimpse of the Bar, in ‘Rumpole and the Official Secret.’
The Bar of the Sheridan Club, looking suspiciously reminiscent of the Cocktail Bar of the Garrick Club.
Erskine-Brown’s election to the Sheridan
We learn a little more about the process of securing election to the Sheridan Club from the sub-plot of ‘Rumpole and the Barrow Boy’ (series five, adapted as the book Rumpole and the Age of Miracles), when Rumpole notes:
Claude Erskine-Brown came to me with a peculiar woe. It seemed he nursed a strange ambition to join the club where actors and judges, publishers and journalists, meet to shelter from their wives and enjoy shared reminiscences and nursery food.
‘I want to put up for the Sheridan,’ he told me.
‘Isn't that rather a frivolous ambition for a fellow who can sit through Tannhäuser without laughing?’
But Claude was not to be dissuaded. ‘I’ve wanted to belong to the club for years,’ he confessed, ‘but the trouble is that [Head of Chambers Samuel] Ballard's on the committee. He's going to remind them of that unfortunate incident when I was photographed in the Kitten-A-Go-Go.’
‘But it was clearly established’ - I defended the suffering Claude - ‘that you only went there to inspect the scene of the crime.’
‘Ballard says members of the Sherdian Club should be like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. And if he decided to blackball, the others on the committee might follow his lead. The blackballs would be all over the place, like...’
‘Sheep shit?’
‘Think of it, Rumpole.’
‘Unpleasant, I agree. My God, what did we ever do to get Soapy Sam Ballard wished on us as a Head of Chambers?’
Yet Rumpole is later able to blackmail Ballard into withdrawing his objections to Erskine-Brown’s election:
‘Take my advice, old darling. Don't ask anyone to blackball poor old Erskine-Brown.’
‘No, no, of course not,’ Ballard assured me hastily. ‘I've always thought Claude would make a pretty good member here.’
‘He might brighten the place up.’ I looked around me. ‘Bring on the dancing girls, for instance.’
‘Rumpole and the Barrow Boy’ also suggests a more transactional side to the Sheridan Club, hosting off-the-record meetings to informally resolve embarrassing deadlocks. For instance, after Rumpole’s wife, Hilda, had been lobbying for him to be appointed a QC:
There had been a call to Chambers from Sir Robert Keith, the Lord Chancellor's chief adviser and right-hand man. Old Keith, Henry [the clerk] told me, wondered if I would care to join him for a drink at the Sheridan Club at six o'clock that evening, It was, it seemed, a matter of some urgency...
After a critical looking-over by the hall porter, I was admitted to the Sheridan bar and into the company of a well-nourished, white-haired man with a florid complexion who now treated me to a large club claret and a look of amused sympathy.
‘I thought a drink at my club, Rumpole, might be the best way to get over this rather tricky situation.’
There is also the suggestion that the Sheridan Club acts as something of a goldfish bowl for the legal profession, with acquaintances observing one another. This is most obvious in the way that Rumpole’s Head of Chambers Samuel Ballard watches Rumpole in conversation with Sir Robert Keith. At the end of the conversation:
I rose and made for the door only to be stopped by my Head of Chambers by the bar. ‘Rumpole,’ he said, in tones of awe and wonder, ‘wasn't that Sir Robert Keith from the Lord Chancellor's office?’
‘That was old Keith. Yes.’ Deeply impressed, Ballard asked permission to buy me another large club claret, and I let him have his way. When it came, he pulled out a wallet and ferreted in it for a five pound note.
‘Did Keith mention me at all?’
‘You want to know what he said about you?’
‘Well, it is interesting to know how one is regarded by the powers that be.’ Ballard's search through his wallet had dislodged a pink slip of paper which fluttered to the ground. ‘He said absolutely nothing about you, Ballard.’
As the references to currency make clear, it is not a cashless club with members’ accounts - drinks in the bar are paid in the same way as in a pub.
The members
Membership of the Sheridan Club is by no means mandatory among barristers - Rumpole seems to revel in mocking the Club from the outside.
Mr. Justice Vosper: ‘I say, Rumpole, you’re not a member here?’
Horace Rumpole: ‘No, judge, I don’t believe I am!’
Vosper: ‘Well, you’re sitting on the members’ sofa!’
Rumpole: [sarcastically] ‘Oh dear.’
Vosper: ‘I suppose you’re pleading ignorance.’
Rumpole: ‘No, judge, I plead exhaustion.’
Nevertheless, Rumpole is still partial to accepting invitations to dinners and drinks there. And the Club is shown to have a high concentration of barristers and judges rubbing shoulders, both at setpiece dinners, and at informal gatherings over drinks and dinner. It is often alluded to by barristers in the series as “The Club”, as if to suggest there is no other. In this respect, Mortimer places it on the same terms as Pomeroy’s Wine Bar: an institution which is completely independent of the courts, yet which still plays an informal role in oiling the wheels of justice.
It is also suggested that professional advancement is secured through the Club - something Mortimer outlines when Featherstone and Erskine-Brown bump into Mr. Justice Vosper and his son Simon by the fireplace:
Mr. Justice Vosper: ‘Ah, Guthrie Featherstone!’
Guthrie Featherstone: ‘Good evening, judge.’
Vosper: ‘We don’t often see you in the Club, my boy. Keeping you pretty busy?’
Featherstone: ‘Snowed under, judge, snowed completely under.’
Vosper: ‘You want to come and relax on the bench. I’m always in the Club by teatime, aren’t I, Simon?’
Simon: ‘Yes, daddy, always.’
Vosper: ‘Er, this is my son, Simon…Simon has just finished his pupillage. Naturally, he’s looking for a seat in a first-class chambers, aren’t you, Simon?’
Simon: ‘Yes, daddy.’
Cornering Featherstone with an order of four large gin-and-tonics, the judge returns to his theme:
‘As I was saying, Simon is looking for a seat in a first-class chambers…If you could manage something for Simon…’
Yet there is a sensitivity to having too many work-related conversations at the Club. When Samuel Ballard is in the Bar at lunchtime, he makes a beeline for the Attorney-General, and buys him a drink. As he is doing so, Rumpole proceeds to ‘talk shop’, with the Attorney-General, who observes:
‘Well, perhaps this isn’t the place for further discussion.’
While Sheridan Club membership is not explicitly stated to be limited to men, it is clearly implied onscreen; the wives of lawyers are guests in the private dining room, but no women are seen in the main dining room or the bar, other than as waitresses. Indeed, it reflects an era when there were far fewer practising female barristers: Today, some 39% of barristers are women; in 1972, the figure was 7%.
Mr. Justice Featherstone, last man standing at the bar, long after closing time.
The staff
The books’ passing references to the staff emphasise their aloofness. Onscreen, however, there is a different dynamic. The warmth of the barmen is more obvious. And in the Sheridan’s final onscreen appearance, it is apparent that the Club’s staff indulge the members considerably: Denver the barman picks up empty glasses late at night while the only member left, a drunken Mr. Justice Featherstone, delivers a self-pitying monologue:
Featherstone: ‘I’ve had no justice whatsoever, Denver.’
Denver: ‘I’m sorry about that, sir, truly sorry.’
Featherstone: ‘No-one to represent me. No chance to put my case. Going in another court, as it just so happens, while the Court of Appeal rubbish me. Rubbish me, Denver! “The Trial Judge was reckless enough to say…” Reckless, me! I mean, tell me quite honestly, Denver, would you say I was reckless?’
Denver: ‘No, Sir Guthrie, but you are my last gentleman, sir!’
Featherstone: ‘The last gentleman! Yes, that’s probably it. Too much of a gentleman to answer back. There are not many of us left nowadays, are there?’
Denver: ‘I was just about to pack up.’
Featherstone: ‘Is that what you’re advising me to do, Denver? Jack it in? Hang up the scarlet dressing gown? Take up golf?…I’m all alone, Denver. All alone in London, with only you for company.’
Denver: ‘A very good night to you, then, Sir Guthrie!’ [Switches off bar lights, one by one.]
The building as seen onscreen
Despite only appearing onscreen on five occasions, we see a surprising amount of the Sheridan Club building in the television series.
The main staircase. Note the screened-off area to the right.
On its first appearance, we see the Sheridan Club’s main staircase and what is described as “the members’ rather splendid hall” beneath it.
While the staircase does not look like the Garrick’s - it is much closer to that of the City of London Club - it has one explicit physical resemblance to the Garrick: at the foot of the steps is an area cordoned off by screens, with comfortable seating behind. (At the Garrick, this is where the candidates’ book is kept.)
The private dining room, where Rumpole’s intended retirement dinner is given.
We also see a small private dining room, where Featherstone has (what he hopes will be) a leaving dinner booked for Rumpole. It is an intimate, candlelit affair.
When we next see the Club onscreen, it is its tall, well-appointed main dining room that is shown. It bears relatively little resemblance to the Coffee Room of the Garrick, and is closer in appearance (though still not an exact match) to the Salon of Boodle’s on St. James’s Street. The view from the Sheridan Club’s dining room suggests a large adjoining garden, like those running along the rear of several Pall Mall clubs, rather than the Garrick’s more urban surroundings.
The Dining Room of the Sheridan Club at lunchtime.
Subsequent onscreen appearances of the Sheridan Club show us the main bar, littered with Vanity Fair prints and Victoriana. Like the portrait-laden Cocktail Bar of the Garrick, it has a dark green colour scheme. With more than one set being used across different series, it appears the Club has more than one bar.
The Sheridan Club’s last appearance, in the final series’ episode ‘Rumpole and the Miscarriage of Justice’ (later adapted as the book Rumpole on Trial), shows us the exterior for the first time - like the Garrick, it is a heavily-stained stone exterior with a busy Covent Garden street outside.
Conclusion
Despite the change of name and some superficial variations in decor, the Sheridan Club is clearly a lampoon of the Garrick Club, based on Mortimer’s extensive experience as a member. Mortimer remained a practising barrister throughout his time producing the Rumpole stories, and his writings were clearly inspired by real-life events, albeit given considerable dramatic licence. What is most striking, beyond individual details, is the Sheridan Club’s unique balance of prominent actors alongside senior lawyers.
Further reading
John Mortimer, The Trials of Rumpole (London: Penguin, 1979).
_________, Rumpole's Last Case (London: Penguin, 1987).
_________, Rumpole and the Age of Miracles (London: Penguin, 1988).
_________, Rumpole on Trial (London: Penguin, 1992).
You can view the full and varied backlog of Clubland Substack articles, by clicking on the index below.
Index
Articles are centred around several distinct strands, so the below contains links to the main pieces, sorted by theme.