The Oriental Club in London is a private members' club that was established in 1824. Charles Graves described it in 1963 as fine in quality as White's but with the space of infinitely larger clubs.Leather Armchairs:The Chivas Regal Book of London Clubs, Charles Graves, 1963, Cassell London It is now located in Stratford House in Stratford Place, near Oxford Street and Bond Street. It has been rated as a prestigious club.
Foundation The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany reported in its April 1824, issue:The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany for April 1824, p. 473 online at books.google.com (accessed 28 January 2008)
The founders included the Duke of Wellington and General Sir John Malcolm,_A Quiet Oasis in the Centre of London – main page of the Oriental Club's official web site (accessed 27 January 2008) 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.Wheeler, Stephen (ed.), Annals of the Oriental Club, 1824–1858 (London, The Arden Press, 1925, xvi + 201pp)
James Grant said of the club in The Great Metropolis (1837):Grant, James, The Great Metropolis (1837), pp. 136–137, online at The Great Metropolis By James Grant at books.google.com (accessed 28 January 2008)
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".Forrest, op. cit. p. 66
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".Metcalfe, Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, The Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe (1858) pp 429–431
With the formation of the East India Club in 1849, the link with the Honourable East India Company began to decline.Graves, Charles, Leather Armchairs: The Chivas Regal Book of London Clubs (London, Cassell & Co., 1963, with foreword by P. G. Wodehouse)
In 1850, Peter Cunningham wrote in his Hand-Book of London:Cunningham, Peter, Hand-Book of London, 1850, online at Victorian London – Entertainment and Recreation – Clubs – Oriental Club (accessed 28 January 2008)
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".Terry, Richard, Indian Cookery, by Richard Terry, Chef-de-Cuisine at the Oriental Club (London, 1861, new edition ed. by Janet Clarke, Reprint Southover Press, 1998Collingham, Lizzie, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (2006) p. 139
Charles Dickens Jr. reported in Dickens's Dictionary of London (1879):Charles Dickens Jr., Dickens's Dictionary of London (1879) quoted at Victorian London – Directories – Dickens's Dictionary of London, by Charles Dickens Jr., 1879 – "Oriental Club" (accessed 27 January 2008) 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.Rules and Regulations for the Government of the Oriental Club (1889)
When Lytton Strachey joined the club in 1922, at the age of forty-two, he wrote to Virginia WoolfTaddeo, Julie Anne, Lytton Strachey and the Search for Modern Sexual Identity: The Last Eminent Victorian (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002) p. 58Forrest, op. cit., p. 32
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",Rye, Reginald Arthur, The Students' Guide to the Libraries of London (London, University of London Press, 1927) p. 48 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.Parker, Louis Napoleon, Several of my Lives (London, Chapman and Hall, 1928) p. 71
In 1934, the novelist Alec Waugh wrote ofWaugh, Alec, The Balliols (New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1934) p. 474
Another writer recalling the club in the 1970s says:
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 Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and Its Dependencies dated June 1824, p. 682, online at The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and Its Dependencies (accessed 28 January 2008)
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.Collage Record 20748 at cityoflondon.gov.uk (accessed 28 January 2008) 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 buildingWalford, Edward, 'Hanover Square and neighbourhood' in Old and New London: Volume 4 (1878), pp. 314–326, online at british-history.ac.uk Report 45200 (accessed 28 January 2008)
The club remained in Hanover Square until 1961. The club house there was in use for the last time on 30 November 1961.Forrest, Denys Mostyn, The Oriental: Life Story of a West End Club (London, Batsford, 1968, 240 pp) 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.About and History at Oriental Club web site (accessed 28 January 2008)
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.Stratford, Gerald H. The Stratfords, (Chapter 13, Belan, Aldborough, and Stratford House) online at Chapter 13, Belan, Aldborough, and Stratford House (accessed 27 January 2008) It belonged briefly to Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, a son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia.AN OASIS IN LONDON'S WEST END at asia-major.com (accessed 27 January 2008) 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.Drawing Rooms at Oriental Club web site (accessed 26 February 2011)Facilities at Oriental Club web site (accessed 27 January 2008)
Stratford House is a Grade I listed building.*Listed Buildings in Stratford Place, Westminster – map at westminster.gov.uk (accessed 29 January 2008)
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.Tully, Mark, Why Queen Victoria’s art reflects her true feelings about India , online at dawn.com (accessed 28 January 2008) 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.Forrest, op. cit., p. 8, pp 228–232
In 2014 the Club came under criticism for refusing to admit a cellist with her baby.
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.Forrest, op. cit., pp 80 & 109
Chairmen of the committee 1837: Sir Pulteney Malcolm GCB RN (brother of the founder, Sir John Malcolm) 1838: George William Cox 1839 and 1844-1845: Rt. Hon. Holt Mackenzie 1840: Field Marshal Sir George Pollock, 1st Baronet 1841: Sir Herbert Abingdon Draper Compton (Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Bombay, Advocate-General of Madras and Calcutta) 1843: Sir Edward Colebrooke, 4th Baronet, MP 1846: G. W. Traill (namesake of Traill's Pass) 1853: Lestock Robert Reid (Governor of Bombay, 1846-1847) 1867-1868: Lieutenant-General Sir George St Patrick Lawrence 1872: Sir Cecil Beadon KCSI (Lieutenant-Governor of the Bengal Presidency 1862-1866) 1877-1878 and 1880: Major-General Christopher Palmer Rigby (British Consul in Zanzibar, 1858-1860) 1881: Sir George Francis Welsh Kellner KCMG CSI 1882: General Sir Henry Edward Landor Thuillier (Surveyor General of India, 1861-1878) 1883-1884, 1886-1888, 1891-1892: James Adair Crawford (Chief political resident of the Persian Gulf, acting Chief Commissioner of Balochistan) 1918: C. A. MacDonaldForrest, op. cit., p. 134 1931-1932, 1936, 1938-1940: Sir Henry Wheeler (Governor of Bihar and Orissa 1922-1927, member of the Council of India 1927-1937) 1932–1933: Sir Reginald MantForrest, op. cit., p. 150 1941: Sir Alfred Donald "Pickle" Pickford OBE 1951: Sir Charles Alexander Innes KCSI CIE (Governor of Burma, 1927–1932) 1956: Sir Arthur Morse KBE JP (Head of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) 1954 and 1958–1962: Sir Arthur BruceForrest, op. cit., p. 16 1966-1967: Geoffrey Stephen Bozman CIE CSI