The Pilgrims Society, founded on 16 July 1902, is a British-American society established, in the words of American diplomat Joseph Choate, 'to promote good-will, good-fellowship, and everlasting peace between the United States and Great Britain'.
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Membership
Over the years it has boasted an elite membership of politicians, diplomats, businessmen, and writers who have included Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher, Caspar Weinberger, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Henry Luce, Lord Carrington, Alexander Haig, Paul Volcker, Thomas Kean and Walter Cronkite to mention a very few. Members of the immediate Royal Family, United States secretaries of state and United States ambassadors to the Court of St. James are customarily admitted to membership in the Society.
Activities
The Society is notable for holding dinners to welcome into office each successive U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. The patron of the society is Queen Elizabeth II.
History
The first informal meeting of the Pilgrims of Great Britain included General Joseph Wheeler, Colonel (later General Sir) Bryan Mahon, the Hon Charles Rolls and Harry Brittain.
The first meeting of the Pilgrims of the United States was at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on 13 January 1903.
The Pilgrims of Great Britain and the Pilgrims of the United States have reciprocal membership.
Executive Committee members, as of 2016, are: