Reform Club

19th century

The club was founded in 1836 by Edward Ellice, Member of Parliament (MP) for Coventry and Whig Whip, whose riches came from the Hudson's Bay Company but whose zeal was chiefly devoted to securing the passage of the Reform Act 1832. This new club, for members of both Houses of Parliament, was intended to be a forum for the radical ideas which the First Reform Bill represented: a bastion of liberal and progressive thought that became closely associated with the Liberal Party, who largely succeeded the Whigs in the second half of the 19th century.

Brooks's Club, the headquarters of the old Whig aristocracy, was neither able nor prepared to open its doors to a flood of new men, so preliminary meetings were held at Ellice's house to plan a much larger club, which would promote 'the social intercourse of the reformers of the United Kingdom'. In the 19th century, any Liberal Party MP or Peer crossing the floor, to join or work with another party, was expected to resign as a member.

The Reform Club's building was designed by renowned architect Sir Charles Barry and contracted to builders Grissell & Peto. Construction began in 1837 and was finished in 1841. This new club was built on palatial lines, the design being based on the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, and its Saloon in particular is regarded as the finest of all London's clubs. The Reform was among the first senior London clubs to provide bedrooms (known as chambers), and its library contains over 75,000 books, mostly of a political, historical and biographical nature; customarily, members donate a copy of any book they write to the club's library, ever increasing its stock.

The Reform was known for the quality of its cuisine, its first chef being Alexis Soyer, the first celebrity chef. It continues to offer meals in its dining room, known as the 'Coffee Room'.

Until the decline of the Liberal Party in the early 20th century, it was de rigueur for Liberal MPs and Peers to be members of the Reform Club, being regarded as an unofficial party headquarters. However, in 1882, the National Liberal Club was established under William Ewart Gladstone's chairmanship, designed to be more "inclusive" towards Liberal grandees and activists throughout the UK.

20th century

After World War II and with the old Liberal Party's further decline, the club increasingly drew its membership from civil servants, not least those from the Treasury, as well as Foreign Office officials, who also frequent the neighbouring Travellers Club.

The club maintains a comprehensive list of guest speakers and musical ensembles throughout the year — for example, Government Ministers Nick Clegg and Theresa May (2011), Archbishop John Sentamu (2012), and Ambassadors Liu Xiaoming (2013), as well as Dr Alexander Yakovenko and Sylvie Bermann (2014).

Today the Reform Club (of which Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall are honorary members) no longer represents any particular political viewpoint, being an impartial and purely social venue.

Literary associations

Besides having had many notable members from the literary world, including William Makepeace Thackeray and Arnold Bennett, the Reform played a role in some significant events, such as the feud between Oscar Wilde's friend and literary executor Robbie Ross and Wilde's ex-lover Lord Alfred Douglas. In 1913, after discovering that Lord Alfred had taken lodgings in the same house as himself with a view to stealing his papers, Ross sought refuge at the club, from where he wrote to Edmund Gosse, saying that he felt obliged to return to his rooms "with firearms". Ross had been elected a member in 1899, and it was also at the club that he had entertained Wilde's son Cyril to lunch, only a few years before the latter was killed by enemy fire during the First World War.

Harold Owen, the brother of Wilfred Owen, called on Siegfried Sassoon at the Reform after Wilfred's death, and Sassoon himself wrote a poem entitled "Lines Written at the Reform Club", which was printed for members at Christmas 1920. Wilfred Owen, though not himself a member, lunched at the club several times in the company of Sassoon and Sir Roderick Meiklejohn.

Appearances in popular culture and literature

The Reform Club appears in Anthony Trollope's novel Phineas Finn (1867). This eponymous main character becomes a member of the club and there acquaints Liberal members of the House of Commons, who arrange to get him elected to an Irish parliamentary borough. The book is one of the political novels in the Palliser series, and the political events it describes are a fictionalized account of the build-up to the Second Reform Act (passed in 1867) which effectively extended the franchise to the working classes.

The club also appears in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days; the protagonist, Phileas Fogg, 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.

Michael Palin, following his fictional predecessor, also began and ended his televised journey around the world in 80 days at the Reform Club. The Reform Club, like other senior London clubs, stipulates a dress code requiring gentlemen to wear a jacket and tie; Palin preferred to remain casually dressed and, not having prepared himself properly, he was not permitted to enter the building to complete his journey as had been his intention, so his trip ended on the steps outside.

The Reform Club was the location of a photo shoot featuring Paula Yates for the 1979 summer issue of Penthouse Magazine.

Victorian publisher Norman Warne is depicted visiting the Reform Club in the 2006 film Miss Potter.

The club has been used as a location in a number of films, including the fencing scene in the 2002 James Bond movie Die Another Day., "The Quiller Memorandum" (1966), "The Man Who Haunted Himself" (1970), Lindsay Anderson's "O Lucky Man!" (1973), "The Avengers" (1998), "Nicholas Nickleby" (2002), "Quantum of Solace" (2008) and "Sherlock Holmes" (2009).

The Reform Club was used as a meeting place for MI operatives in Part 3, Chapter 1, p. 83ff of Graham Greene's spy novel "The Human Factor" (1978, Avon Books, ISBN 0-380-41491-0) and for a scene with Hugh Bonneville in the 2014 film Paddington.