Early beefsteak clubs The first known beefsteak club (the Beef-Stake Club, Beef-Steak Clubb or Honourable Beef-Steak Club) seems to have been that founded in about 1705 in London. The club originally met at the Imperial Phiz public house in
Old Jewry in the
City of London, but finding that venue not private enough, it ceased to meet there, and by 1709 it was not known "whether they have healed the breach and returned into the Kit-Cat community [or] … remove from place to place to prevent discovery."
Joseph Addison referred to the club in
The Spectator in 1711 as still functioning. The historian Colin J. Horne suggests that the club may have come to an end with the death of Estcourt in 1712.
Sublime Society of Beef Steaks The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks was established in 1735 by
John Rich at the
Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, of which he was then manager. One version of its origin has it that the
Earl of Peterborough, supping one night with Rich in his private room, was so delighted with the steak Rich grilled him that he suggested a repetition of the meal the next week. Another version is that
George Lambert, the scene-painter at the theatre, was often too busy to leave the theatre and "contented himself with a beefsteak broiled upon the fire in the painting-room." His visitors so enjoyed sharing this dish that they set up the Sublime Society.
William and
Robert Chambers, writing in 1869, favour the second version, noting that Peterborough was not one of the original members. Whatever the details of its genesis, Rich and Lambert are listed as the first two of the society's twenty-four founding members. Women were not admitted. From the outset, the society strove to avoid the term "club", but the shorter "Beefsteak Club" was soon used by many as an informal alternative. The society soon became much celebrated and these men of the arts were joined by noblemen, royalty, statesmen and great soldiers: in 1785,
the Prince of Wales joined, and later his brothers the Dukes of
Clarence and
Sussex became members. The society met at Covent Garden until the fire of 1808, when it moved first to the Bedford Coffee House, and thence the following year to the
Old Lyceum Theatre. On the burning of the Lyceum in 1830, "The Steaks" met again in the Bedford Coffee House until 1838, when the Lyceum reopened, and a large room there was allotted to the club. These meetings were held till the society ceased to exist in 1867. Its decline in its last twenty or so years was due to changing fashion: many of its members were no longer free on Saturdays, being either engaged in events in London's social season or else away from London at weekends, something much encouraged by the opening of railways. The customary time for dinner had also changed. The society moved its dinner time from 4.00 p.m. in 1808, to 6.00 p.m. in 1833 and to 7.00 p.m. in 1861, and finally to 8.00 p.m. in 1866, but the change inconvenienced the members who preferred the old timing and did not attract new members. Moreover, in
Victorian England, its
Georgian heartiness and ritual, and old-fashioned uniform, no longer appealed. By 1867 the society had only eighteen members, and the average attendance at dinners had dwindled to two. The club was wound up in 1867, and its assets were auctioned at
Christie's, raising a little over £600.
Other 18th and 19th century clubs Thomas Sheridan founded a "Beefsteak Club" in
Dublin at the
Theatre Royal in 1749, and of this
Peg Woffington was president. According to William and Robert Chambers, writing in 1869, "it could hardly be called a club at all, seeing all expenses were defrayed by Manager Sheridan, who likewise invited the guests – generally peers and members of parliament. … Such weekly meetings were common to all theatres, it being a custom for the principal performers to dine together every Saturday and invite 'authors and other geniuses' to partake of their hospitality." The Liberty Beef Steak Club sought to show solidarity with the radical
John Wilkes MP and met at Appleby's Tavern in Parliament Street, London for an unknown duration after Wilkes's return from exile in France in 1768. John Timbs wrote in 1872 of a "Beef-Steak Club" which met at the Bell Tavern, Church Row,
Houndsditch, and was instituted by "Mr Beard, Mr Dunstall, Mr Woodward, Stoppalear, Bencroft, Gifford etc". It is not clear if the
Ivy Lane Club, of which
Dr Johnson was a member, was a "Beef-Steak Club", but it met at a famous beef-steak house. Many beefsteak clubs of the 18th and 19th centuries have used the traditional grilling gridiron as their symbol and some are even named after it: the
Gridiron Club of
Oxford was founded in 1884, and the
Gridiron Club of Washington D.C. was founded the following year. These two clubs also still exist. The oldest dining club in Australia is the Melbourne Beefsteak Club, established in May 1886, when merchant John Deegan, City Councillor William Ievers, solicitor James Maloney and manufacturer Frank Stuart gathered with friends for regular lunches. Their motto was "Beefsteak and Brotherhood", and the membership was made up of gentlemen from business, the professions, and academia. It held its 300th dinner on 14 October 1916 and its 400th on 11 August 1928, in the
Hotel Windsor. "Leadership in War", the speech that General Sir
John Monash gave to the Club on 30 March 1926, was included in a 2004 collection entitled
The Speeches that Made Australia.
Successors to the Sublime Society , used by the Sublime Society, restored by
Henry Irving. The kitchen is at the rear, beyond the gridiron-shaped grating.
Irving's dinners and the present Sublime Society Since the closure of the original Sublime Society in 1867, three separate efforts have been made to revive it in various forms. In 1878
Henry Irving, as the new proprietor of the Lyceum Theatre, restored and furnished the backstage area of the theatre that had been used by the society as its dining room and kitchen. From 1879 until his death in 1905, he hosted dinners for the society. A biographer of Irving wrote, "He wanted the Lyceum to have the same educational and intellectual force that
Phelps' theatre had enjoyed in lslington." The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks was re-formed in 1966 and has met continually since then. Several nineteenth century members have lineal descendants among today's membership, who wear the original blue and buff uniform (of a Regency character) and buttons and adhere to the 1735 constitution whenever practicable. Although other of the society's relics (such as the original Grid Iron, Sword of State, Halberts and early members' chairs, rings, glasses, documents, etc.) have passed down to members of the current society from ancestors in the original society, the current society "leaves such items in safety, keeping less fragile replicas and proxy items for its normal meetings in Central London".
Beefsteak Club, Irving Street (l) and
W. S. Gilbert; (below)
Henry Labouchère (l) and
F. C. Burnand The Beefsteak Club that today has premises at 9 Irving Street, London, was established in 1876. When it was founded as a successor to the Sublime Society, its members hoped to rent the society's dining room at the Lyceum. As that room was not available, the club held its first meeting, on 11 March 1876, in rooms above the
Folly Theatre (later known as Toole's Theatre) in King William IV Street. Two features of the club were, and are, that all members and guests sit together at a single long table, and that by tradition the club steward and the waiters are all addressed as "Charles". Restaurant critic
Nathaniel Newnham-Davis was also a member around the turn of the 20th century. The club moved to Green Street, in
Mayfair, and, in 1896, to its present address. There were 250 members, In 1879 there was a much-reported court case following a fracas on the doorstep of the club between Labouchère and
Edward Levy-Lawson, proprietor of
The Daily Telegraph. The committee of the club expelled Labouchère, who successfully sought a court ruling that they had no right to do so. The members have included at least one prime minister: in 1957 the members gave a dinner to
Harold Macmillan "to mark the occasion of his becoming Prime Minister, and in recognition of his services to the club as their senior trustee." ''
Who's Who'' lists 791 men, living and dead, who have been members of the present Beefsteak Club. As well as men of the theatre, they include politicians such as
R. A. Butler,
Roy Jenkins and
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the writer
Evelyn Waugh, poets including
John Betjeman, musicians including
Edward Elgar and
Malcolm Sargent, filmmakers and broadcasters such as
Richard Attenborough,
Peter Bazalgette,
Richard Dimbleby,
Barry Humphries and
Stephen Fry, and philosophers including
A. J. Ayer and
A. C. Grayling, as well as figures from other spheres such as
Robert Baden-Powell,
Osbert Lancaster and
Edwin Lutyens. ==See also==