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Discussions are underway on whether to admit women to several of London’s remaining gentlemen’s clubs following a vote this week by members of the Garrick Club to allow women to join after 193 years.
The Travelers Club, Savile Club, Beefsteak Club, Boodle’s, Buck’s, Brooks, East India Club and White’s are among the handful of other London clubs that still do not accept female members.
Club secretaries at some of these institutions are understood to have consulted lawyers to see if their rules were also vulnerable to reinterpretation after Garrick’s votewhich is based on new legal advice that the pronoun “he” in the club’s rules should also be taken as “she”.
Earlier this year, a preliminary consultation was launched among members of the Savile Club regarding the possible opening of the club to female members at some point in the future. Gareth Neame, the Downton Abbey executive producer, stepped down from both his role as Savile chairman last month and as a member when discussions began. He did not reveal why he decided to step down.
The forum also discusses the issue of whether women should be able to become members East India Club, which has a huge club in St James’s Square, central London. The club merged with the State Schools Club in 1972 and has a reduced-price membership for male school-leavers – if they attend one of the 351 private schools affiliated to the Heads’ Conference group of independent schools.
The original members of the club worked for the East India Company, which acted as an agent of British imperialism in India and was liquidated in disgrace in 1873; the club’s name evokes nostalgia for one of the most exploitative and controversial periods of the British Empire.
“According to its constitution, East India membership is open only to gentlemen. However, the club also welcomes ladies as guests of members,” the club’s website reads. Sources said the club’s leadership was understood to be in favor of changing the rules to allow women to join, but votes on the matter never reached the required two-thirds majority.
The Beefsteak Club, which has dozens of current and former Conservative MPs and peers among its members, is also understood to be considering allowing women to join the small dining club in rooms with a wooden ceilingright next to Leicester Square.
Female staff at a City firm recently expressed disappointment that corporate entertainment continued to be held at Buck’s, another Mayfair club favored by royalty, military officers and financiers, which also has a no-women rule. Although female guests are admitted to the club, they are not invited to join male colleagues and customers.
Buck’s has been criticized for continuing an event where older members dine with a rotating list of younger guests, according to a recent report in the Financial Times, which noted that the event was officially called “The Bond Street Horticultural Society” but was called “nephew night” by club members.
Informal poll of Travelers Clubwho in the past has had a close relationship with the Foreign Office and international diplomats, rejected a proposal to allow women to join in 2014. Many members expressed strong hostility to the proposal, with one stating that the male-only rules allowed members to enjoy “male banter without dealing with the etiquette one inevitably has to observe in female company (be it offering her drinks, waiting for her to eat, or standing when she arrives or leaves)”.
Donald Trump’s ambassador to London, Woody Johnson, was criticized by female colleagues for holding business lunches at White’s, where strict rules barring women from even entering the building meant he couldn’t invite his own political adviser to join, according to the New York Times. White, whose membership consists mainly of sons of landed, aristocratic families, is understood not to have discussed allowing female members.
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The Equality Act 2010 protects single-sex establishments, including gentlemen’s clubs and sports clubs, but as a result of this legislation, those clubs that admit women as guests are no longer allowed to reserve seats inside the building for men. Men-only clubs are understood to be sharing legal advice on the matter through the Association of London Clubs, the industry body for private clubs.
“I don’t think they’re all going to fall; I think they’ll keep their heads down, hoping no one notices they’re still there and the problem will go away,” said one club member, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Those clubs that decide to change their rules to admit women may not change the atmosphere much for a while, not least because existing members have to start recruiting women with the spare time and money and desire to join. On Pratt decided to accept women last year, but the club’s slow admissions process has meant only two or three have been admitted so far (including former home secretary Amber Rudd and fellow Conservative economist Dambisa Moyo, according to a Pratt member).
Although The Athenaeumanother of London’s oldest gentlemen’s clubs, began admitting women 21 years ago, its membership remains solidly male: only 28% of the club’s 147 new members were women in 2022-23. Only 7% of new members are under 40, while only two are under 30.
Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) began admitting female members in 1998 after 212 years as an all-male organisation; 26 years later, women make up only 4% of full members – because there is a 29-year waiting list and before 1998 women could not join it. The club has a limited number of about 18,000 members, so someone has to leave or die before a new member is accepted. The MCC is unable to quickly bring women into full membership because this would be in breach of the Equality Act.
Jill Rutter, senior fellow at the Institute of Governance and former civil servant and cricket enthusiast, said: “It’s one thing to admit women in principle, but as we’ve seen with other clubs, the speed of change can be glacial unless you’re ready. to take extraordinary measures to accelerate women. More than 20 years after women were finally allowed to apply to the MCC, they still represent a small proportion of the membership. The point there is that women were placed at the bottom of the waiting list. At the Garrick it will be how many blackballs there are from women-sceptical members.’
Major Rupert Landrum, the Buck’s secretary, writes that it will come as no surprise … that the club is unwilling to comment on such matters. As a private club, our policies and procedures remain private.”
Gareth Neame and representatives of other clubs have been contacted for comment.
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