The Hysteron Proteron Club, sometimes spelt "Husteron Proteron", was a dining club at Balliol College, Oxford, in the 1920s and revived at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1980.
Name The name refers to a hysteron proteron, a rhetorical device and figure of speech in which a natural or rational order is reversed, as in phrase "then came the thunder and the lightning".hysteron proteron at merriam-webster.com
History
The main purpose of the Hysteron Proteron Club was to eat meals backwards, and there was at least one dinner per term, which began with coffee and liqueurs and ended with the soup course. However, the Club's activities went beyond this. Neville Shute later remembered a meal which lasted for twelve hours, beginning at 9 am and going on until 9 pm, starting with coffee and followed by a naked swim at Parsons' Pleasure, usually a pre-breakfast activity.John Hely-Hutchinson, Carol Symphony: the life and times of Victor Hely-Hutchinson, pp. 39-40 Another dinner was a so-called “circular feast”, at which the courses were, as usual, eaten backwards and each was eaten at a different place around Oxford, beginning and ending at rooms in St Michael's Street.
Graham Greene was a member and told his mother that once a term the club had a "backwards day". He reported that after finishing with porridge "we then returned backwards to Balliol... This morning started with bridge in dinner jackets".Norman Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene Volume 1: 1904-1939 (Penguin Books, 1990), p. 120 Evelyn Waugh, who had been at another college from 1922 to 1924, similarly recalled in A Little Learning that members "put themselves to great discomfort by living a day in reverse".The New Yorker, Volume 67, Issues 28-36 (F-R Publishing Corporation, 1991), p. 74John Howard Wilson, Evelyn Waugh: 1924-1966 (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996), p. 18 In 1954, Keith Hancock (1898–1988), a distinguished Australian historian, who was at Balliol in the 1920s, revealed that he had "hankered secretly for an invitation to join the Husteron Proteron Club".W. K. Hancock, Country and Calling (Faber & Faber, 1954), p. 82
The club was revived in 1980 at Trinity College, Oxford by a classicist, Michael Leahy, with a group of fellow Trinity undergraduates including Michael Fiddes, Paul Browne, and Chris Fairey. The full day backwards was properly done, beginning the day with cigars, brandy and port in black tie, followed by a formal dinner eaten backwards. This was followed (at the appropriate interval) by a backwards lunch and a backwards breakfast. The initial idea of a pre breakfast rowing session could not unfortunately occur as breakfast was taken at around 8 pm. The day was somewhat surreal, but all survived very happily. {pers.recollection, February 2026).
Allusions In 1999, Peter Brooke, the son of a Club member, referred to the Club during a debate in the House of Commons on the Greater London Authority Bill:Greater London Authority Bill, debate at publications.parliament.uk, accessed 2 August 2016
He mentioned the Club again in a debate on the Learning and Skills Bill in 2000,Learning and Skills Bill, debate at publications.parliament.uk, accessed 2 August 2016 and again in the House of Lords in July 2002.Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill at api.parliament.uk, accessed 2 August 2016
Notable members Nevil Shute (1899–1960) Victor Hely-Hutchinson (1901–1947) Henry Brooke (1903–1984) Graham Greene (1904–1991)
See also George Hysteron-Proteron
Notes