Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/398

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. VIL MAY 17, 1913.

GRILLION'S CLUB. (US. vii. 349.)

AT 3 S. iii. 408 (23 May, 1863), the following account is given of this Club :

" Grillion's Club, of which the Fiftieth Anni- versary was celebrated on May 6th, under the presidency of the Earl of Derby, was founded half a century since by the principal parlia- mentary men of the time, as a neutral ground on which they might meet. Politics are strictly excluded. Its name, of course, is derived from the hotel at which the dinner was originally held. On Jan. 30th, 1860, there was sold at Puttick's a series of seventy-nine portraits of members of the club, comprising statesmen, members of the government, and other highly distinguished persons during the last half century. These portraits, all of which were private plates, were engraved by Lewis, after drawings by J. Slater and G. Richmond. There were also four duplicate portraits, a vignette title, rules of the club, and list of its members. As we are not aware of any set having before occurred for sale, and as some of the portraits are not otherwise engraved, we have thought it might be interesting to future inquirers to reprint the list."

Then follows a ' List of the Portraits,' to which the note is added : " The four gentle- men whose names we have printed in italics are the only surviving original members."

Sir Thomas Dyke Acland was one of the original members, and was a B.A. of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1808. It is stated in the ' D.N.B.' that

" during his undergraduate days at Oxford he aided in founding Grillon's [sic} Club, of which many eminent politicians were members."

Lord Melbourne was a Cambridge man, and was not, I think, one of the founders.

In ' London Past and Present,' by Wheat- ley and Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 157 (1891), there is this account of the Club :

" Grillion's Club, 7, Albemarle Street, ori- ginated in a meeting of a few college friends at Christ Church, Oxford, 1805-1807. The Club was founded in 1812 at Grillion's Hotel, and the members dined together every Wednesday during the Parliamentary session, but the day of meeting was afterwards changed to Monday. The Club removed to the Clarendon Hotel (then kept by Grillion) in 1860."

Greville in his ' Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria,' Second Series, vol. iii. p. 321, says under date 28 Feb., 1850 :.

" I was last night elected at Grillon's [sic] Club, much to mv surprise, for I did not know I was a candidate."

Under 8 March he says :

" I dined on Wednesday at Grillon's [sic], and was received with vast civility and cordiality. A large party, much larger than usual amongst them Harrowby, Granville, Graham, Sir Thomas Fremantle, Rutherford, Pusey, Sir Thomas Acland, &c. Sat next Graham, and had much talk on affairs."

The correct name was Pierre Grilh'on, not Grillon.

There is no mention of this Club in ' Lon- don Clubs,' by Nevill, nor in several other books about clubs which I have consulted.

Since the above was written my friend Mr. J. Latton* Pickering, the librarian here, has called my attention to the Woburn Abbey Library Catalogue, which contains, at p. 557, this entry : " Grillion's Club. Portraits of members, fol. 1829." Lord John Russell was a member of the Club. Also to the British Museum Catalogue, which contains the following entries : " Grillion's Club from its origin .... to its fiftieth anniversary, &c. 1880. 4to." " Members of Grillion's Club. From 1813 to 1863. [Its semi-centenary.] 1864, fol. Privately printed."

In The Times of 8 May, 1863, there is a short notice of the semi -centenary banquet, with the names of the members who were present and absent a most distinguished body of men. HARRY B. POLAND.

Inner Temple.

The friendship between two Eton boys was the real basis of Grillion's Club (see infra), although its origin has been usually referred to the intimacy between a few college friends who met together at Christ Church during the years 1805-6-7-8, and several of whom, after leaving Oxford, reassembled in the winter of 1807-8 at Edinburgh for attendance at the lectures of Dugald Stewart, Hope, and others. Following this there came an annual social gathering until the winter of 1812-13, while during the intervening period some of these college friends had been travelling together in Spain, Greece, and the Mediterranean. Chief among them must be named Stratford Canning, H. Gaily Knight, and John Nicholas Fazakerley. It was from a conversation at Constantinople between Stratford Canning (afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe) and J. N. Fazakerley on the subject of the serious damage which London society suffered from the violence of political controversy, and the value of establishing a neutral ground where the heads of both parties might meet, that ** Grillion's " was evolved out of the Christ Church club. The raison d'etre of the Club was to bring together, 'regardless