Lost Clubs: The City Carlton Club (1869-1940)
The Conservative Party's City outpost - which could be surpisingly louche
The City Carlton Club’s premises on St. Swithin’s Lane from 1879 to 1940, pictured shortly after they opened. The illustration has a slight optical illusion, in exaggerating the breadth of the much narrower St. Swithin’s Lane. (Picture credit: Frank Watkins, ‘New Building of the City Carlton Club’, Illustrated London News, 28 February 1880.)
I previously wrote about the City Liberal Club. Its conservative rival, the City Carlton Club, was born five years earlier, from similar pressures. When it opened in 1869, it was the first of the City of London private members’ clubs to be themed around a political party, acting as a bridgehead between the Conservative Party and the capital’s financial district.
To understand the significance of its opening in 1869, it is important to bear in mind the state of UK politics in the 1860s. As I argued in Club Government, there was a direct link between each of the major political clubs, and each of the major ‘Reform Acts’ of the 19th century - 1832, 1867, and 1884-5. Each of these Reform Acts was years in the making and negotiating, and the question of who should - and should not - be given the franchise involved lengthy debates on what were the desirable things (and people) within Britain who were thought worthy of representation, in the evolving constitution. Every time a new tranche of voters was added (or looked to soon be added) to the electoral roll, new political clubs were set up to build a bridgehead to those new kinds of voters - whose support could be critical in deciding future elections. The City of London was no newcomer to electoral politics - it had returned MPs since 1707 - but it began to assume an ever more important role, as the business of mass elections required mass fundraising; and the City of London was key to that. The Conservative Party therefore put in motion the establishment of a club directly catering to the City, based in its heart.
The City Carlton Club’s first premises, at 83 King William Street from 1869-79, pictured on the 1869 six-inch Ordnance Survey Map.
Dickens’ Dictionary of London by Charles Dickens Jr. (1879) tells us that the Club’s objectives were:
“In connection with the Conservative party, and designed to promote its objects. The only persons eligible for admission are those who profess and will support Conservative and sound Constitutional principles.”
This was very much in line with the Carlton Club and Reform Club at the time, when failure to support the Conservatives and Liberals respectively would have constituted instant grounds for expulsion. (This remains the case at the Carlton to this day; but has not been the case at the Reform Club since the 1930s.)
The Club opened its first clubhouse in pre-existing premises at 83 King William Street in 1869; and it occupied these premises for the first decade, while fundraising for, commissioning and building a new clubhouse of its own.
The City Carlton Club’s second and final premises, at 24-27 St. Swithin’s Lane from 1879-1940, pictured on the 1889 25-inch Ordnance Survey Map. Note that to the left of the map, half-way up Walbook, is the building marked “Club”, which is the City Carlton’s rival, the City Liberal Club.
The Club’s purpose-built new clubhouse opened in 1879, and remained its home until its dissolution in 1940. It was at 24-27 St. Swithin’s Lane, a few hundred metres south-west of the previous clubhouse, and one street parallel to the City Liberal Club which had constructed its building on Walbrook in 1877. The clubhouse came with all the amenities expected of a Victorian club of the period, including a stately dining room (below).
William Luker, ‘The City Carlton Club Coffee Room’, in W. J. Loftie, London City (London: Leadenhall Press, 1891).
Dickens’ Dictionary of London (1879) noted:
“The names of candidates are taken in the order in which they are inserted in the candidates' book, but peers, eldest sons of peers, members of the House of Commons and members of the Carlton, the Junior Carlton, the Conservative, and St. Stephen's Clubs, as also such persons holding high civic or other distinguished positions, as the committee may in their judgment think fit, are entitled to be balloted for immediately.”
In other words, there was a waiting list for most applicants, who joined the queue on a supply-and-demand basis for places; but MPs, peers, eldest sons of peers (who could expect to inherit their fathers’ titles), and members of the four principal Conservative Party-affiliated clubs, could all vault over the waiting list and come up for election immediately. In practice, this mean that priority was given to some 5,500 individuals. While it does not provide proof of election, it suggests that much of the character was that of a City outpost of the existing Conservative clubs of the West End
The City Carlton Club had a somewhat louche reputation, and this was reflected in everything from comparative drinking figures (a 1909 Parliamentary Question answered by Herbert Samuel noted that whereas the National Liberal Club’s members consumed an average of 31s. 4d. per member on alcohol, and the Conservative-affiliated Constitutional Club 33s. 5d per member, the City Carlton’s members accounted for 48s. each), to the somewhat risqué choice of drinking cup presented by the Club circa 1900 (below)
‘Vera’: a ‘Bottoms Up’ half-pint silver plate cup produced by the Junior Carlton Club circa 1900, depicting a pin-up girl in lingerie, complete with the club crest. (Photo credit: Piers Rankin website.)
The City Carlton Club outlived its nearby Liberal rival by nearly twenty years. Although it endured the economic difficulties which befell clubs in the inter-war years, it was a victim of the Blitz, suffering a direct hit in 1940 - one of dozens of Victorian clubs to suffer the same fate. The members chose to wind up the Club shortly afterwards, rather than attempting to rebuild it.
Herbert Mason’s iconic photograph of St. Paul’s Cathedral standing intact amidst the bombing of the surrounding area during the Blitz. The City Carlton Club was one of the City of London’s many casualties.
There is little sign of the 1879-1940 clubhouse on St. Swithin’s Lane today - a modern brown-brick building stands on the site, on the west side of the street. However, if you compare the view to the illustration at the top of this page, you may recognise the spot by comparing the masonry of the neighbouring building to its north, at numbers 21-23, which still stands today.
