# Is There a Nice, Stuffy edwardian (London) Club I Can Join? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 10, 2010, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-nice-stuffy-edwardian-london-club-i-can-join/549812 "2010-08-10T12:43:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-nice-stuffy-edwardian-london-club-i-can-join/549812/21 "2010-08-11T19:19:16Z")
An aunt of mine had her wedding rehearsal dinner at Chicago’s [University Club](http://www.ucco.com/). Having recently read Around the World in 80 Days at the time, it seemed a very close approximation to that book’s London Reform Club. (And hey, Wikipedia says the Reform Club is still extant and has even been admitting women since 1981.) ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-nice-stuffy-edwardian-london-club-i-can-join/549812/22 "2010-08-11T19:34:39Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > I used to belong to the QI Club (yes, that QI) in Oxford, which was mixed gender, not exclusively for gentlemen. Big fireplace, leather armchairs, lots of books and games around. It was great. I accidentally joined once when drunk in charge of a new credit card. It had reciprocal arrangements with a club in London. Sadly it got bought, turned into the Corner Club, then went bust. I used to live down the street from what became the QI Club. It can’t have been there for too long–I left Oxford at the end of 2000 and the location was then an Indian restaurant. That corner location was a bit cursed: it housed three or four very different businesses, including a bookstore and a different restaurant, in the six years I lived nearby. Anyway, I’m rather sad that the QI Club didn’t show up until after I’d gone. Not that I could have afforded the 250 quid back in those days. ---
**Author:** ![Kayeby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de0a6/32.png) [@Kayeby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kayeby)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-nice-stuffy-edwardian-london-club-i-can-join/549812/23 "2010-08-12T01:32:06Z")
> [@APB](#): > > > [@Kayeby](#): > > > > The club [the Athenaeum] doesn’t admit female members… > > Actually, the Athenaeum has admitted women since 2002. > > This reflects a general trend among the older clubs towards less exclusivity. Which is being forced on them as the type of person who used to join them as a matter of course becomes increasingly rare. After all, who now would want to be a member of the Athenaeum or the Reform, if they can instead join the Groucho or Soho House? The one in Melbourne is still men-only, though there has been increasing pressure to admit women. Perhaps the clubs are unrelated? I had assumed from the names that they were, but maybe they’re not. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-nice-stuffy-edwardian-london-club-i-can-join/549812/24 "2010-08-12T15:51:32Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > I assume that it would have to be expensive, otherwise they’d have a hard time maintaining their air of exclusivity. Not so - as noted, the price isn’t particularly high (the more famous ones are probably rather more than £250 a year, but there are plenty of clubs in London you can join for £500 or less per year.) What keeps them exclusive is that you can’t just pony up the money and join. You generally have to be “proposed” by an existing member, or at least have your application thoroughly vetted and approved by the club. In addition, there’s often a long waiting list for the popular clubs. One of my work colleagues is a member of a club just off the Strand which is popular among media types, and I’ve been there as his guest occasionally. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-nice-stuffy-edwardian-london-club-i-can-join/549812/25 "2010-08-12T19:24:10Z")
> [@Miss\_Mapp](#): > > > [@digs](#): > > > > Ah, but one of those Stuffy Olde Clubs in literature sounded ideal simply because socializing was frowned on. It wasn’t Bertie’s _Drones Club_, or Jeeves’s\* Junior Ganymedes\*… maybe Lord Peter Wimsey’s? > > Mycroft Holmes’s Diogenes Club restricted members from speaking aloud within its walls. In Lord Peter’s Bellona Club (a club for soldiers), conversation was not forbidden, but elderly members harrumph’d when young persons like WWI vet George Fentiman spoke too loudly and intemperately. Your comment about the (fictitious) Diogenes Club stirred my memory-the 1970 movie “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” depicted Mycrofy cranking the handle of a starneg device-a machine to gently tilt a bottle of old port (so as not to dislodge the sediment). Thats how I picture a London Club-galsses of port and rich cigars! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-nice-stuffy-edwardian-london-club-i-can-join/549812.md?page=1)