Athenaeum Club, London

The Athenaeum Club in 2006 viewed from the south-east

The Athenaeum is a private members' club in London, founded in 1824. It was originally a gentlemen's club but since 2002 lady members have been admitted on the same terms as men. It is primarily a club for men and women with intellectual interests, and particularly (but not exclusively) for those who have attained some distinction in science, literature or the arts. It has had many well known members. The impressive clubhouse (at 107 Pall Mall at the corner of Waterloo Place) was designed by Decimus Burton in the Neoclassical style with a Doric portico, above which is a statue of the classical goddess of wisdom, Athena. The bas-relief frieze is a copy of the frieze of the Parthenon in Athens. The club's facilities include an extensive library, a dining room known as the Coffee Room, a Morning Room, a Drawing Room on the first floor, a newly restored Smoking Room, where smoking is not permitted, and a suite of bedrooms.

History

The Athenaeum was founded in 1824 at the instigation of John Wilson Croker, then Secretary to the Admiralty, who was largely responsible for the organisation and early development of the Club. In March 1823 he had written to Sir Humphrey Davy, who was a personal friend and also at that time the president of the Royal Society, proposing the foundation of a club "for Literary and Scientific men and followers of the Fine Arts". A Committee was formed, the names being proposed by Croker, who wrote that "all depends on having a Committee with a great many good names and a few working hands". The first meeting was held on 16 February 1824, when 14 men were present, and a small sub-committee was appointed with full powers to do what was necessary to get the club started. It was resolved that there should be 400 members, of whom 300 were to be appointed by the Committee and the remainder elected by ballot. This first committee also included Sir Thomas Lawrence (who designed the club seal with the head of Athene), Francis Chantrey and Viscount Palmerston. Sir Humphrey Davy became the first Chairman of the club and Michael Faraday the first secretary, though he soon found that he could not spare the time required and resigned, though he remained as a member of the club.The total number of members was increased to 1,000 by December 1824.

By May 1824 temporary premises had been rented at 12 Waterloo Place, and Croker and the Committee turned their minds to providing a permanent home for the club. Decimus Burton, then 24 years old, was commissioned to design a permanent clubhouse. A site was chosen on the north side of Pall Mall East but was found to be too small. The next proposed site was on the east side of Trafalgar Square , but then the government decided to demolish Carlton House and develop the site and a portion of it was offered to the Athenaeum. The offer was accepted and a long lease was granted by the Crown.

Decimus Burton designed the club house in Neoclassical style. The main entrance on Waterloo Place has a Doric portico with paired columns. The original building had two principal storeys; the third and fourth were added at the end of the19th century.

The Athenaeum Club in 1830

There is a continuous balustrade on the first floor, with an outstanding but costly frieze depicting the Panathenaic procession, copied from the Parthenon, above the first floor windows. Croker, who was much involved in the building of the clubhouse, was determined that it should have the frieze, despite the cost, and resisted pressure from some members (in those pre-refrigeration days) that an ice-house be part of the scheme; leading some wit to compose the rhyme:

I'm John Wilson Croker, I do as I please. Instead of an Ice-House I give you a... Frieze!

The frieze was executed by John Henning at a cost of £1,300. .Building works commenced in 1827 and were completed by 1830. The statue of Pallas Athene by Edward Hodges Baily, which stands above the porch, was installed in the same year (the spear was added later). The total cost was £43,101 14s 8d. This exceeded the estimate by £2,226, attributed to the cost of gas fittings and furniture.

The statue of Apollo above the main staircase is a plaster cast of the Apollo Belvedere. A statue of Demosthenes was first installed there but was speedily removed and replaced by the Apollo, which was presented to the club by Decimus Burton. The statues of Venus and Diana on either side of the hall are casts of antique statues in the Louvre in Paris.

The new building was complete by early 1830 and the first general meeting was held there on 30 May 1830. In the same year the rules of the club were amended by the addition of a new Rule 2, which allowed the Committee to elect each year not more than 9 persons "of distinguished eminence in science, literature or the arts". This rule has always been a special feature of the club and, with the addition of the words "or for public service", remains in force today. Ordinary members were elected by ballot. The Duke of Wellington was a founding member of the club and the stone installed at his request to assist him in mounting his horse can still be seen on the pavement outside the front porch.

After the completion of the building there was a cash deficit of some £20,000 and in 1832 it was decided to bring in 200 supernumerary members, half selected by the committee and half elected by the club. This restored the finances for the time being, but additional expenditure was soon required to improve the ventilation of the clubhouse and because of recurrent troubles with the gas lighting (it was one of the first buildings to be lit by gas) and it was decided in 1838 to increase the permitted number of members to 1,200, which made it necessary to elect a further 40 members. These became known as the "Forty Thieves" and comprised some very distinguished men including Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin.

The number of members was still 1,200 when Humphry Ward published his history of the club in 1926, but has subsequently been increased to 2,000. There was always a long waiting list in the 19th century and the earlier years of the 20th century.

In 1886 the clubhouse was first lit by electricity, supplied by its own generator until connected to a public supply in 1896. The interior of the clubhouse was extensively redecorated in the early 1890s to designs by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Sir Edward Poynter, both members of the club. The morning room decoration remains largely unchanged.

In 1853, Charles Manby Smith noted the importance of the club - "... from having been wise enough to join the grocer's Plum-pudding Club, they shall end by becoming prosperous enough to join the Whittington Club, or the Gresham Club, or the Athenaeum Club, or the Travellers' Club; or the House of Commons, or the House of Lords either."

In 2002 the members voted by a large majority to admit women as members on the same terms in all respects as men.

The hall of the club in 1841. The statue of Venus can be seen in its present position on the far wall, but the two statues seen on either side of the staircase were later removed

Sources

• Phiz, London at Dinner, or Where to Dine, (London: Robert Hardwick, 1858) ('Phiz' was a pseudonym of Hablot Knight Browne)
• Humphry Ward: History of the Athenaeum 1824-1925 (London. 1926)
• Frank Richard Cowell, The Athenaeum: Club and Social Life in London, 1824-1974, (London: Heinemann, 1975) ISBN 0-435-32010-6
• Hugh Tait & Richard Walker: The Athenaeum Collection (London. 2000)

External links

• Official website
• Guide to the archives of the Athenaeum Club
• List of London's gentlemen's clubs
• Interesting debate in the House of Lord's May 2002 re the Sex Discrimination Bill and women members of Clubs
• List of prominent Victorian era members of the Athenaeum Club
• Map showing location of the club (streetmap.co.uk)

• Boston Athenæum