Reform Club

The Reform Club is a private gentlemen's club situated on the south side of Pall Mall (at number 104), in central London. (It has admitted ladies since the 1960s.)

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It was founded by Whig members of both Houses of Parliament around the time the Reform Act of 1832 was being debated. It was intended to be a bastion of liberal and progressive thought.

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The building, like its neighbour the Travellers Club, was designed by Sir Charles Barry and opened in 1841.

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With the decline of the Liberal Party in the mid-20th century, the club increasingly drew its membership from civil servants in the Treasury, as a counterpart to the neighbouring Travellers Club, which became synonymous with Foreign Office officials.

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Its members have included:

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• Hilaire Belloc
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• E. M. Forster
• Henry James
• Stella Rimington
• William Makepeace Thackeray
• H. G. Wells
• Roy Jenkins
• Jeremy Thorpe (expelled in the 1970s)
• Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George, both of whom resigned in 1913 in protest at the blackballing of a friend.
• Guy Burgess

It is used fictitiously in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, the protagonist(Phileas Fogg) of which is a member of the Reform Club who sets out to circumnavigate the world on a bet from his fellow members, beginning and ending at the club.

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Michael Palin, in imitation of his fictional predecessor, also began and ended his televised journey around the world in eighty days at the Reform Club.

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Reform Club: See also ►



 

Gentlemen's club: Gentlemen's club may mean:...

Pall Mall: Pall mall (pronounced pal-mal or pell-mell) or palle maille was a game played in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a precursor to croquet. The name comes from the Italian pallamaglio, which literally means "ball-mallet". It was played in a long alley with an iron hoop suspended over the ground at t...

Whig: This article is about the British Whig party. For other uses of the word "Whig", see the disambiguation page....




Reform Club related Images and Photos (experimental)

Club Zanzibar	Club Imperial	Club Paradise (DVD)	Club Le Mode (U.K. Quad)
Reform School Girl	Fight Club (Rules)	Players Club, The (DVD)	Surf Club
Jazz Club	Wine Club I	Beach Club	Blues Club