Oriental Club

The Oriental Club in London is an exclusive Private Members’ Club established in 1824. Charles Graves describes it as fine in quality as White's but with the space of infinitely larger clubs. It is located in Stratford Place, near Oxford Street and Bond Street.

Foundation

The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany reported in its April 1824, issue:

An Oriental Club has just been established in London, of which the Duke of Wellington is President, and upwards of forty individuals of rank and talent connected with our Eastern empire are appointed a Committee. The following is the Prospectus... The Oriental club will be established at a house in a convenient situation. The utmost economy shall be observed in the whole establishment, and the subscription for its foundation and support shall not exceed fifteen pounds entrance, and six pounds per annum. There will be a commodious reading room... A library will be gradually formed, chiefly of works on oriental subjects. The coffee room of the club will be established on the most economical principles, similar to those of the United Service and Union. There will be occasional house dinners. The qualifications for members of this club are, having been resident or employed in the public service of His Majesty, or the East-India Company, in any part of the East – belonging to the Royal Asiatic Society – being officially connected with our Eastern Governments at home or abroad... The British Empire in the East is now so extensive, and the persons connected with it so numerous, that the establishment of an institution where they may meet on a footing of social intercourse, seems particularly desirable. It is the chief object of the Oriental club to promote that intercourse...

The founders included the Duke of Wellington and General Sir John Malcolm, and in 1824 all the Presidencies and Provinces of British India were still controlled by the Honourable East India Company.

History and membership

The early years of the club, from 1824 to 1858, are detailed in a book by Stephen Wheeler published in 1925, which contains a paragraph on each member of the club of that period.

James Grant said of the club in The Great Metropolis (1837):

The Oriental Club, corner of Hanover Square, consists of gentlemen who have resided some time in the East. A great majority of its members are persons who are living at home on fortunes they have amassed in India. India and Indian matters form the everlasting topics of their conversation. I have often thought it would be worth the while of some curious person to count the number of times the words Calcutta, Bombay and Madras are pronounced by the members in the course of a day. The admission money to the Oriental Club is twenty pounds, the annual subscription is eight pounds. The number of members is 550. The finances of the Oriental are in a flourishing state, the receipts last year amounted to 5,609l, while the expenditure was only 4,923l, thus leaving a balance in favour of the club of 685l... at this rate they will get more rapidly out of debt than clubs usually do... Nabobs are usually remarkable for the quantity of snuff they take; the account against the club for this article is so small that they must be sparing in the use of it; it only averages 17l. 10s. per annum. Possibly, however, most of the members are in the habit of carrying boxes of their own...

The old Smoking Room is adorned with an elaborate ram's head snuff box complete with snuff rake and spoons, though most members have forgotten its original function.

On 29 July 1844, two heroes of the First Anglo-Afghan War, Sir William Nott and Sir Robert Sale, were elected as members of the club by the Committee as an "extraordinary tribute of respect and anticipating the unanimous sentiment of the Club".

On 12 January 1846, a special meeting at the club in Hanover Square presided over by George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, a former Governor-General of India, paid a public tribute to the dying Charles Metcalfe, 1st Baron Metcalfe, which Sir James Weir Hogg described as "a wreath upon his bier".

With the formation of the East India Club in 1849, the link with the Honourable East India Company began to decline.

In 1850, Peter Cunningham wrote in his Hand-Book of London:

ORIENTAL CLUB, 18, HANOVER SQUARE, founded 1824, by Sir John Malcolm, and is composed of noblemen and gentlemen who have travelled or resided in Asia, at St Helena, in Egypt, at the Cape of Good Hope, the Mauritius, or at Constantinople; or whose official situations connect them with the administration of our Eastern government abroad or at home. Entrance money, 20l.; annual subscription 8l. The Club possesses some good portraits of Clive, Stringer Lawrence, Sir Eyre Coote, Sir David Ochterloney, Sir G. Pollock, Sir W. Nott, Mountstuart Elphinstone, Henry Pottinger, Duke of Wellington, &c.

In 1861, the club's Chef de cuisine, Richard Terry, published his book Indian Cookery, stating that his recipes were "gathered, not only from my own knowledge of cookery, but from Native Cooks".

Charles Dickens Jr. reported in Dickens's Dictionary of London (1879):

Oriental Club is "composed of noblemen, M.P.'s, and gentlemen of the first distinction and character." The Committee elect by ballot, twelve are a quorum, and three black balls exclude. Entrance fee, £31; subscription, £8 8s

Dickens appears to have been quoting the club's own Rules and Regulations; that phrase appears there in 1889, when the total number of members was limited to eight hundred. When Lytton Strachey joined the club in 1922, at the age of forty-two, he wrote to Virginia Woolf

Do you know that I have joined the Oriental Club? One becomes 65, with an income of 5,000 a year, directly one enters it ... . Just the place for me, you see, in my present condition. I pass almost unnoticed with my glazed eyes and white hair, as I sink into a leather chair heavily, with a copy of The Field in hand. Excellent claret, too – one of the best cellars in London, by Jove!

Stephen Wheeler's 1925 book Annals of the Oriental Club, 1824–1858 also contains a list of the members of the club in the year 1924, with their years of election and their places of residence.

In 1927, R. A. Rye wrote of the club's library – "The library of the Oriental Club ... contains about 4,700 volumes, mostly on oriental subjects", while in 1928 Louis Napoleon Parker mentioned in his autobiography "... the bald and venerable heads of the members of the Oriental Club, perpetually reading The Morning Post.

In 1934, the novelist Alec Waugh wrote of

the colonial administrator's renunciation of the pomp of official dignities for the obscurity of a chair beside the fireplace in the Oriental Club.

Another writer recalling the club in the 1970s says:

Inside were a motley collection of ageing colonials, ex-Bankers, ex-directors of Commonwealth corporations, retired Tea estate owners from Coorg and Shillong and Darjeeling, the odd Maharajah in a Savile Row suit, and certainly a number of Asiatics entitled to be addressed as Your Excellencies.

Club houses

In its monthly issue for June 1824, The Asiatic Journal reported that "The Oriental Club expect to open their house, No. 16, Lower Grosvenor Street, early in June. The Members, in the mean time, are requested to send their names to the Secretary as above, and to pay their admission fee and first year's subscription to the bankers, Messrs Martin, Call and Co., Bond Street."

The club's first purpose-built club house, in Hanover Square, was constructed in 1827–1828 and designed by Philip Wyatt and his brother Benjamin Dean Wyatt. The construction of additions to the Clubhouse that were designed by Decimus Burton, in 1853, was superintended, when eventually commenced, in 1871, by his nephew Henry Marley Burton.

Edward Walford, in his Old and New London (Volume 4, 1878) wrote of this building

At the north-west angle of the square, facing Tenterden Street, is the Oriental Club, founded about the year 1825... The building is constructed after the manner of club-houses in general, having only one tier of windows above the ground-floor. The interior received some fresh embellishment about the year 1850, some of the rooms and ceilings having been decorated in a superior style by Collman, and it contains some fine portraits of Indian and other celebrities, such as Lord Clive, Nott, Pottinger, Sir Eyre Coote, &c. This club is jocosely called by one of the critics of 'Michael Angelo Titmarsh' the "horizontal jungle" off Hanover Square.

The club remained in Hanover Square until 1961. The club house there was in use for the last time on 30 November 1961. Early in 1962, the club moved into its present club house, Stratford House in Stratford Place, just off Oxford Street, London W1C, having bought the property for conversion in 1960.

The central range of Stratford House was designed by Robert Adam and was built between 1770 and 1776 for Edward Stratford, 2nd Earl of Aldborough, who paid £4,000 for the site. It had previously been the location of the Lord Mayor of London's Banqueting House, built in 1565. The house remained in the Stratford family until 1832. It belonged briefly to Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, a son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. The house was little altered until 1894, when its then owner, Murray Guthrie, added a second storey to the east and west wings and a colonnade in front. In 1903, a new owner, the Liberal politician Sir Edward Colebrook, later Lord Colebrooke, reconstructed the Library to an Adam design. In 1908, Lord Derby bought a lease and began more alterations, removing the colonnade and adding a third storey to both wings. He took out the original bifurcated staircase (replacing it with a less elegant single one), demolished the stables and built a Banqueting Hall with a grand ballroom above.

In 1960, the Club began to convert its new property. The ballroom was turned into two floors of new bedrooms, further lifts were added, and the banqueting hall was divided into a dining room and other rooms. The club now has a main drawing room, as well as others, a members' bar, a library and an ante-room, a billiards room, an internet suite and business room, and two (non)smoking rooms, as well as a dining room and 32 bedrooms.

Stratford House is a Grade I listed building.

The flag flying above the club house bears an Indian elephant, which is the badge of the club.

Art collection

The club possesses a fine collection of paintings, including many early portraits of Britons in India such as Warren Hastings. The Bar is overlooked by a painting of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore (1750–1799). There are portraits of the club's principal founders, the first Duke of Wellington (by H. W. Pickersgill) and Sir John Malcolm (by Samuel Lane). Other portraits include Lord Cornwallis (1738–1805), also by Samuel Lane, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy, 1st Baronet (1783–1859), by John Smart, Clive of India (1725–1774) by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Major-General Stringer Lawrence by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Major General Sir Thomas Munro, 1st Baronet (1761–1827), by Ramsay Richard Reinagle, Edward Stratford, second Earl of Aldborough (died 1801) by Mather Brown, Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt (c. 1769–1849) and General Sir William Nott, both by Thomas Brigstocke, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (1845–1927) by Sydney P. Kenrick after John Singer Sargent, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Strachey (1817–1908) by Lowes Dickinson (the bequest of his widow, Jane Maria Strachey), Charles Metcalfe, 1st Baron Metcalfe by F. R. Say, Thomas Snodgrass by an unknown artist, and a bust of the first Lord Lake.

President of the club

• 1824–1852: Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (Honorary President)

After Wellington's death in 1852, no further presidents were appointed.

Chairmen of the committee

• 1837: Sir Pulteney Malcolm GCB RN (brother of the founder, Sir John Malcolm)
• 1843: Sir James Law Lushington GCB
• 1918: C. A. MacDonald
• 1932–1933: Sir Reginald Mant
• 1951: Sir Charles Alexander Innes KCSI CIE (Governor of Burma, 1927–1932)
• 1954 and 1958–1962: Sir Arthur Bruce

Founding committee

The first club committee of 1824 included:

Other notable members

• Lieutenant-General Sir Alexander Campbell, 1st Baronet, GCB (1760–1824)
• Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Blackwood, 1st Baronet (1770–1832)
• Pownoll Pellew, 2nd Viscount Exmouth (1786–1833)
• Andrew Blayney, 11th Baron Blayney (1770-1834)
• Lieutenant General Sir John Colquhoun Grant KCB GCH (1772–1835), cavalry general
• Lieutenant General Sir Edward Barnes, GCB (1776-1838), Governor of Ceylon
• Edward Clive, 1st Earl of Powis (1754-1839), Governor of Madras from 1798 to 1803
• Lord William Bentinck (1774-1839), first Governor-General of India from 1834 to 1835
• Sir Hudson Lowe GCMG (1769–1844)
• Omar/Omer Effendi (fl. 1830-1840s), Cambridge-educated Egyptian Ottoman diplomat, protégé of Muhammad Ali of Egypt and aide-de-camp to his son Ibrahim Pasha
• George FitzClarence, 1st Earl of Munster (1794–1842), son of King William IV
• General Sir Archibald Campbell, 1st Baronet GCB (1769-1843), commander of British forces in the First Anglo-Burmese War
• Sir William Nott (1782–1845), distinguished soldier of the First Anglo-Afghan War, by special election
• Sir Robert Sale (1782–1845), distinguished soldier of the First Anglo-Afghan War, by special election
• Admiral Sir Philip Charles Durham, GCB (1763-1845), Royal Navy officer in the American War of Independence, French Revolutionary War, and Napoleonic Wars
• Sir James Rivett-Carnac, 1st Baronet (1784–1846), statesman and politician, Governor of the Bombay Presidency from 1838 to 1841
• Dwarkanath Tagore (1794–1846), early Indian industrialist and grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore
• Lieutenant-General Sir Colin Campbell KCB (1776–1847), Governor of British Ceylon, 1841-1847
• George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland (1784–1849), Governor-General of India 1835–1842
• Shahzada Muhammad Jamal-ud-din Sultan Sahib (aka Prince Jamh O Deen of Mysore (1795-1842), son of Tipu Sultan, the "Tiger of Mysore", whose portrait hangs above the bar
• Herbert Abingdon Draper Compton (1770-1846), Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Bombay, and Advocate-General of Madras and Calcutta
• Lord George Bentinck (1802-1848), Conservative politician and racehorse owner
• Thomas Fletcher Waghorn (1800-1850), naval officer and explorer, pioneer of an overland route to India through Egypt
• William Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford (1768–1854)
• Walter Henry Medhurst (1796-1857), Congregationalist missionary to China, early translator of the Bible into Chinese
• Sir Henry Strachey, 2nd Baronet (1772–1858)
• Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779–1859), Governor of Bombay and author
• Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy, 1st Baronet (1783–1859), Indian-Parsi merchant and philanthropist
• William Butterworth Bayley (1782-1860), director and chairman of the British East India Company, acting Governor-General of India, 1828
• Ahmed Nazım Bey (d. 1863), Ottoman Commissioner to the 1862 International Exhibition, eldest son of Mehmed Fuad Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
• Sir John Spencer Login (1809-1863), Scottish surgeon, guardian of fellow member Maharajah Duleep Singh and the Koh-i-Noor diamond
• Lieutenant-General William Monteith (1790-1864), soldier, diplomatist and historian associated with the East India Company
• George "Squire" Osbaldeston (1786-1866), Member of Parliament and sportsman
• General Sir George de Lacy Evans GCB (1787–1870), Irish officer in the British Army and Member of Parliament
• Sir Thomas Herbert Maddock (1792-1870), colonial administrator and MP
• John Wood (1812-1871), Scottish naval officer, cartographer, and explorer of Central Asia
• Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1797–1875), traveller, writer and pioneer Egyptologist of the 19th century, "the Father of British Egyptology"
• General John Briggs (1785–1875), officer in the army of the East India Company, Persian scholar
• Mohan Lal Kashmiri (1812-1877), Indian traveler, diplomat, and author, player in the Great Game
• Alfred Burton (1802-1877). Mayor of Hastings, and son of the pre-eminent property developer James Burton. Alfred Burton was a long-standing member of the club, to which he donated numerous books and pictures, and to which his brother Decimus Burton and nephew Henry Marley Burton made architectural additions
• John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence (1811-1879), Viceroy of India 1864-1869
• John Hutt (1795-1880), Governor of Western Australia 1839-1846
• Sir Cecil Beadon KCSI (1816–1880), colonial administrator, Lieutenant-Governor of the Bengal Presidency 1862-1866
• Mansur Ali Khan, last Nawab of Bengal (1830–1884)
• The Honourable Robert Grimston (1816-1884), amateur cricketer and a pioneer of electric telegraphy
• Iqbal al-Daula Bahadur (1808–1888), pretender to the throne of Oudh, grandson of Saadat Ali Khan II, the sixth Nawab
• Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, GCSI (1838-1893), youngest son of Ranjit Singh (the "Lion of Punjab"), last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire
• William Tozer (1829–1899), colonial bishop
• Sir John Strachey GCSI CIE (1823-1907), Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, acting Governor-General in February 1872
• Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Strachey, GCSI FRS FRGS (1817–1908), colonial administrator, soldier, and scientist, President of the Royal Geographical Society
• Robert Needham Cust (1821-1909), British administrator, judge, and scholar in colonial India
• Sir George Sutherland Mackenzie KCMG (1844-1910) British businessman and explorer
• Sir William Chichele Plowden KCSI (1832-1915), member of the Imperial Legislative Council, Liberal MP
• Colonel Dugald McTavish Lumsden CB (1851-1915), Scottish-born British army officer, founder of Indian cavalry unit Lumsden's Horse in the Second Boer War
• Sir Henry Meredyth Chichele Plowden (1840-1920), India-born first-class cricketer, barrister and judge
• Sir Ludovic Charles Porter KCSI, KCIE, OBE (1869-1928), colonial administrator
• Sir Ernest Mason Satow, GCMG, PC (1843-1929), diplomat, scholar, and Japanologist
• James Lyle Mackay, 1st Earl of Inchcape (1852–1932)
• Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), writer and critic, founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of Eminent Victorians
• Sir Archibald Birkmyre, 1st Baronet (1875–1935)
• Sir John Prescott Hewett GCSI, KBE, CIE, GCSStJ (1854-1941), Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh and Conservative MP for Luton
• Sir Edward Rosling (1863-1946), politician and tea planter in Ceylon
• Sir Alfred Donald "Pickle" Pickford OBE (1872-1947), businessman in India and Boy Scouts Association official
• Sir Narayana Raghavan Pillai of Elenkath, KCIE, CBE, ICS (1898-1992) Former Governor of the Bank of India & Secretary of State; grandson of Nanoo Pillai of Elenkath, Diwan of Travancore
• Sir Alec Ogilvie (1913-1997), Calcutta businessman
• Sir Charles Philip Haddon-Cave KBE CMG (1925-1999), Chief Secretary of Hong Kong, 1971-1981
• Sir John Jardine Paterson (1920–2000), Calcutta businessman
• Austen Kark (1926–2002), managing director of the BBC World Service
• John Burton Buckley, 3rd Baron Wrenbury (1927-2014)
• Sir George Martin (1926-2016), producer of The Beatles
• Sir David Tang KBE (1954-2017), Hong Kong and London businessman
• William Charles Langdon Brown CBE (b. 1931), banker and former Member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council
• Francis Grosvenor, 8th Earl of Wilton (b. 1934)
• Simon Mackay, Baron Tanlaw (b. 1934), businessman, horologist, grandson of Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, last White Rajah of Sarawak and his wife the Ranee Sylvia
• Sir Mark Tully (b. 1936) former Chief of Bureau, BBC, New Delhi
• Evelyn Baring, 4th Earl of Cromer (b. 1946), of the Barings banking family
• Graeme George Shepherd, 3rd Baron Shepherd (b. 1949)
• Keiichi Hayashi (b. 1951), Representative of the Emperor of Japan
• Edward Stanley, 19th Earl of Derby (b. 1962)
• Peter Mackay, 4th Earl of Inchcape (b. 1943)
• Ravi Kumar, Pillai of Kandamath. Indian aristocrat
• Maharaja Jai Singh
• Christopher Beazley MEP (b. 1952)
• Swapan Dasgupta (b. 1955) Indian MP and journalist
• Sir Alan Duncan KCMG, MP (b. 1957), Minister of State for International Development, Minister of State for Europe and the Americas
• Richard Harrington, Baron Harrington of Watford, MP (b. 1957), Minister of State for Refugees
• David Davies MP (b. 1970), Secretary of State for Wales
• James Innes (b. 1975), British author

Members in fiction

• Early in William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair (1848), Thackeray says of Joseph Sedley that "...he dined at fashionable taverns (for the Oriental Club was not as yet invented)." By the time of Sedley's return from India in 1827, "His very first point, of course, was to become a member of the Oriental Club, where he spent his mornings in the company of his brother Indians, where he dined, or whence he brought home men to dine."
• In Thackeray's The Newcomes (1855), Colonel Thomas Newcome and Binnie are members of the Oriental Club. Writing of Thackeray, Francis Evans Baily says "...the Anglo-Indian types in his novels, including Colonel Newcome, were drawn from members of the Oriental Club in Hanover Square".

Bibliography

• Baillie, Alexander F., The Oriental Club and Hanover Square (London, Longman, Green, 1901, 290 pp, illustrated)
• Wheeler, Stephen (ed.), Annals of the Oriental Club, 1824–1858 (London, The Arden Press, 1925, xvi + 201 pp)
• Forrest, Denys Mostyn, The Oriental: Life Story of a West End Club (London, Batsford, 1968, 240 pp)
• Riches, Hugh A History of the Oriental Club (London, Oriental Club, 1998)
• Thévoz, Seth Alexander (2022). Behind Closed Doors: The Secret Life of London Private Members' Clubs. London: Robinson/Little, Brown. ISBN 978-1-47214-646-5.

See also

• List of London's gentlemen's clubs

References

External links

• The Oriental Club – official web site
• The Association of London Clubs – official web site
• Listed Buildings in Stratford Place, Westminster – at westminster.gov.uk (official web site of the City of Westminster)