Savage Club

History

Founding

The founding meeting of the Savage Club took place on 12 October 1857, at the Crown Tavern, Vinegar Yard, Drury Lane, after a letter by pro tempore honorary secretary George Augustus Sala was sent to prospective members. The letter advised it would be 'a meeting of gentlemen connected with literature and the fine arts, and warmly interested in the promotion of Christian knowledge, and the sale of exciseable liquors' with a view to 'forming a social society or club'. The inaugural gathering would also decide upon the new association's 'suitable designation'.[[File:John Savage (1673-1747) engraving.jpg|thumb|313x313px|Richard Savage, poet ( – 1743)]]Around 20 attended the first meeting, including William Brough, Robert Brough, Leicester Silk Buckingham, John Deffett Francis, Gustav von Franck, William Bernhardt Tegetmeier, and Gustave Louis Maurice Strauss.

Andrew Halliday, joint honorary secretary in 1858, and later club president, wrote in his 1867 anthology of how the 'suitable designation' was determined:

Hereupon a member called out, in a pure spirit of wantonness, "The Savage". That keen sense of humour was again tickled. "The very thing!" he exclaimed. "No one can say that there is anything pretentious in assuming that name. If we accept Richard Savage as our godfather, it shows that there is no pride about us." And so, in a frolicsome humour, our little society was christened the "Savage Club".'}}

Character

Many of the original members were drawn from the ranks of bohemian journalists and writers for The Illustrated London News who considered themselves unlikely to be accepted into the older, arts related Garrick Club, but, within two decades, the Savage Club itself had become 'almost respectable'. The early requirement – 'a working man in literature or art' – was soon broadened to include musicians, and the club's first piano was hired in 1871, prompting Halliday to tell another member 'Hang your piano... it's ruining the Club'. An associated Masonic lodge was established in 1887.

Premises

The club moved from its original home at the Crown Tavern, the next year to the Nell Gwynne Tavern. In 1863 it moved to Gordon's Hotel in Covent Garden, then to 6–7 Adelphi Terrace, later to 9 Fitzmaurice Place, Berkeley Square, London W1, and, from 1936 to the end of 1963, Carlton House Terrace in St James's (previously the home of the Conservative statesman Lord Curzon). In 1990, the club moved to a room within the National Liberal Club at 1 Whitehall Place, London SW1, and in 2025 the club opened at dedicated premises at 27 Great Queen Street, London WC2, back in Covent Garden.

Guests and references

The club has hosted a variety of guests over the years including American writer and humorist Mark Twain, and the Australian cricket team during its 1934 English tour. In the aftermath of World War II, Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists, arrived as a guest of Henry Williamson, author of Tarka the Otter, but was asked to leave.

The club features in Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel, The Lost World.

The club today

Events and reciprocals

The club maintains a tradition of regular dinners for members and their guests, always followed by entertainment, often featuring distinguished musical performers from the club's membership. Several times a year members invite ladies to share both the dinner and the entertainment, and on these occasions guests always include widows of former Savages, who are known as Rosemaries (after rosemary, a symbol of remembrance). There are also monthly lunches, which are followed by a talk given by a member or an invited guest on a subject of which he has specific expert knowledge.

During the weekend, members are permitted to use the East India Club in St James's Square and the Oxford and Cambridge Club in Pall Mall. There are also reciprocal arrangements with other clubs internationally. Members of the Savage Club may also use accommodation at the Savile, Farmers and Lansdowne Clubs.

Membership

In 1962, the club had around 1,000 members. It remains one of the small number of London clubs that does not admit women as members, although women are admitted as guests. Members are classified into one of six categories which best describes their main interest: art, drama, law, literature, music or science. They must be proposed and seconded by two existing members, and if unknown by any other members, are required to attend a club function in order to meet some members. The category of membership might mirror a member's profession, though there are many members with an interest in one or more of the membership categories, but who practise none professionally. There is a range of membership fees depending on membership category.

Notable members

• James Agate
• Norman Allin
• Richard Arnell
• Arthur Askey
• Alfred Louis Bacharach
• George Baker
• J. M. Barrie
• A. H. Behrend
• Webster Booth
• Collin Brooks
• Charles Spencer Chaplin (Charlie Chaplin)
• Albert Chevalier
• Alan Civil
• Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain)
• Edward John Cobbett
• Hal Pateshall Colebatch
• Mortimer Collins
• Wilkie Collins
• Robert Courtneidge
• Most of the members of The Crazy Gang
• Augustin Daly
• Richard Davey
• Edward Elgar
• Bernard Walter Evans
• Herman Finck
• Alexander Fleming
• Brian J. Ford
• C. B. Fry
• W. S. Gilbert
• Dan Godfrey
• Walter Goodman
• George Grossmith
• Weedon Grossmith
• Charles Groves
• Mark Hambourg (pianist)
• Tommy Handley and the cast of It's That Man Again (ITMA)
• John Hassall (illustrator)
• Macdonald Hastings
• Jack Hawkins
• Will Hay
• A. P. Herbert
• Stanley Holloway
• Tom Hood
• Keble Howard (writer)
• Henry Irving
• Alex James
• C.E.M. Joad panellist on The Brains Trust
• Evan Rowland Jones
• Gwynn Parry Jones
• Mark Lemon (Editor of Punch)
• Sidney Kilner Levett-Yeats
• Lord Kitchener
• David Low (Colonel Blimp)
• Arthur Lucan, aka Old Mother Riley
• Phil May
• Malcolm McEachern ('Mr Jetsam')
• Charles Millward
• Arthur Moreland
• Benno Moiseiwitsch
• Earl Mountbatten
• Fridtjof Nansen
• R. G. W. Norrish
• Norman O'Neill
• E. Phillips Oppenheim
• Robert Young Pelton
• King Edward VII
• King George V
• King George VI
• Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
• Bertram Prance
• John Proctor
• Magnus Pyke
• Sergei Rachmaninov
• Arnold Ridley
• Heath Robinson
• Carl Rosa
• Dante Rossetti
• Rafael Sabatini
• George Augustus Sala
• Leonard Salzedo
• Charles Santley
• Robert Wilfred Scarff
• Captain Scott
• Harry Secombe
• E. H. Shepard
• W. Somerset Maugham
• George Loraine Stampa
• Dylan Thomas
• Charles John Tibbits
• Herbert Beerbohm Tree
• Tommy Trinder
• Peter Underwood
• Stanley Unwin
• Peter Ustinov
• Edgar Wallace
• Artemus Ward
• Alec Waugh
• James McNeill Whistler
• Henry Williamson
• Hugh Ross Williamson
• P. G. Wodehouse
• Wee Georgie Wood (music hall comedian)
• Henry Wood (conductor)
• Lewis Pinhorn Wood (artist)
• John Worsley
• Charles Wyndham
• Oswald Yorke actor

The Savage Club Masonic Lodge

On 11 February 1882, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), attended a dinner in his honour at the Savage Club, before becoming a member. The Prince suggested a Masonic lodge, associated with the club, should be formed.

The Savage Club Lodge, No. 2190 received its Warrant of Constitution on 18 December 1886, and was consecrated on 18 January 1887, with war correspondent Sir John Richard Sommers Vine as the first Master. The first treasurer was the actor Sir Henry Irving, followed by the actor Edward O'Connor Terry in 1888. This tendency towards the arts continued to be reflected in the Lodge's membership for many years.

The club and lodge have never been formally connected except in name. Lodge membership is not restricted to Savage Club members; however, most who join still have a professional life in literature, art, drama, music, science or law.

Founders of the Savage Club Lodge

• Francis Wyatt Truscott
• John Maclean
• J. R. Somers Vine
• Thomas Catling
• Henry Irving
• Archibald McNeill
• W. E. Chapman
• Raymond Tucker
• Thomas Burnside
• Earl of Dunraven
• John Paige
• Gustav von Franck

References

• Bradshaw, Percy V. (1958), Brother Savages and Guests, W. H. Allen & Co.
• {{cite book

References

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2. "The First Letter". Savage Club.
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4. (1867). "Savage Club Papers". Tinsley Brothers.
5. Nigel Cross. (9 June 1988). "The Common Writer: Life in Nineteenth-Century Grub Street". CUP Archive.
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7. (1962-10-27). "Savage Club In Search Of A New Home". [[The Times]].
8. "Clubbing". [[Cornell University]].
9. Collin Brooks. (1998). "Fleet Street, Press Barons and Politics: The Journals of Collin Brooks, 1932–1940". Cambridge University Press.
10. Graham Macklin. (2007). "Very Deeply Dyed in Black: Sir Oswald Mosley and the Resurrection of British Fascism After 1945". I.B.Tauris.
11. A. Conan Doyle, The Lost World (Penguin Classics, 2007)
12. (2005). "London: A Musical Gazetteer". Yale University Press.
13. Editor's biography in ''British Music of Our Time'' (1951)
14. Lisa Chaney. (6 July 2010). "Hide-And-Seek With Angels: The Life of J.M. Barrie". Random House.
15. (21 October 1899). "Probably only a few of the present generation will remember". Pateley Bridge & Nidderdale Herald.
16. (1910). "Who's Who 1910". [[A & C Black]].
17. R. Tames, London: A Cultural History (OUP, 2006), p110
18. "Bolton Abbey from the Soay by Bernard Walter Evans". Lytham St Annes Art Collection.
19. J. Stedman, W.S. Gilbert: A Classic Victorian and His Theatre (OUP, 1996), p19
20. Summers, Jonathan. [https://www.naxos.com/person/Mark_Hambourg/44165.htm 'Mark Hambourg', notes to ''A–Z of Pianists''], Naxos CD (2007) 8.558107–10
21. Keble Howard, ''My Motley Life, A Tale of Struggle''. (T Fisher Unwin Ltd, 1927), p 145
22. Jeffrey Richards. (20 January 2007). "Sir Henry Irving: A Victorian Actor and His World". A&C Black.
23. (2018). "Noble Savages: The Savage Club and the Great War 1914-1918".
24. "British Cartoon Archive – University of Kent".
25. (3 March 2008). "Royal Match of Tiddlywinks".
26. "British Cartoon Archive - University of Kent".
27. D. Birch (ed) The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 7th Edition, (OUP 2009)
28. (1967). "Who Was Who 1929–1940". Adam & Charles Black.
29. "John Worsley". Telegraph.co.uk.
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31. Tracy C. Davis. (21 June 2007). "The Economics of the British Stage 1800–1914". Cambridge University Press.
32. "Savage Club Lodge (2190)". Lane's Masonic Records.
33. "Savage Club Lodge 2190". [[Savage Club#The Savage Club Masonic Lodge/The Savage Club Masonic Lodge]].
34. Walter H. Wills. (2006). "The Anglo-African Who's Who and Biographical Sketchbook, 1907". Jeppestown Press.