The Reform Club isn’t often to be found on the ‘top ten’ private members clubs in London lists so beloved of newspapers and websites. But with a year-long waiting list, record membership numbers and fresh from a major conservation project is it still one of the places to be?
Even in an area like Westminster, full of grand buildings, you can’t help but be drawn to 104 Pall Mall. Faced with Portland stone this three floored building projects an austerity that belies the dramatic decoration to be found within. This magnificence is well placed as 104 Pall Mall is the home of The Reform Club, a private club that boasted many of the most important and famous politicians and writers of the nineteenth century as its members.
Founded in 1836 its original membership was solely for those who showed support to the Great Reform Act and for those who embraced the political ideals of the Liberal Party and which largely succeeded the Whigs in the late nineteenth century. Of course, membership was limited to Gentlemen (although they did show much more judgement in 1981 when they were one of the first of the traditional members clubs to allow women to join).
The founder of the Reform Club was the M.P for Coventry and the Whig Party Whip, Edward “Bear” Ellice. The building that now houses the Reform Club came slightly later, in 1841, and from its establishment until then the Club members met in other buildings, including the house that was on the site before being demolished for the new building. Membership rocketed and they had reached just under 1,000 a year after its foundation and by the time they got into their dedicated premises they were at 1,286.
The politics of the Club aside, the building itself has an interesting history. The designer of the building was Sir Charles Barry, best known for rebuilding the Palace of Westminster after the fire of 1834 and also later known for designing Bridgewater House in 1950. Barry was one of several designers who entered their plans in order to win the commission of building this unofficial base for the Liberal Party. At a general meeting of the Club, in 1837, the building committee was instructed ‘to request seven architects of talent and experience to make plans and estimates for a new Clubhouse’. The seven architects were Charles Barry, George Basevi, Edward Blore, Decimus Burton, Charles Cockerell, Phillip Hardwick, and Sydney Smikre.
Crucial to the bid was that the budget was set at £37,500, including fittings (although this was increased shortly after). Four out of the original seven architects submitted final designs in November 1837 and a general meeting of the Club chose Barry as the designer. Budgetary constraints meant Barry’s design had to incorporate decorative finishes and materials that mimicked more expensive natural luxury materials. The Reform was less marble and more plaster but nonetheless luxurious for it – its flamboyant interior a marked contrast to its outside appearance. Despite these materials the gross final cost actually came to just under £80,000 making the Clubhouse one of the most expensive of its type.
This flamboyance is shown in all areas of the Club. The visitor is greeted by large portraits of Whig and Radical leaders of the reform movement that are set into panels in the upper and lower floors of the atrium. The scagliola, a pigmented plaster that works as artificial marble, covers the walls; columns are deep red and green, white, sienna, black and gold. The principal Club rooms have richly ornamented and gilded ceilings, incorporating elaborate versions of the letter ‘R’ – all of this magnificence is magnified throughout the Club by the use of huge mirrors.
The Reform also incorporated one of the largest and finest private libraries to be found in England. This library was established in 1841, shortly after the new Clubhouse had opened, and was a comprehensive collection of parliamentary papers, speeches and reports – a collection of references that were considered to be essential reading for the members of the Club. Sir Anthony Panizzi, the future principal librarian of the British Museum and designer of its famous circular Reading Room, guided this library.
From the beginning, the Club has enjoyed an excellent reputation for its food and wine. This is not surprising since the founder of the Club, Edward Ellice was a renowned gourmet and from the outset gastronomy was called in as a powerful agent of political cohesion. The new Club soon became a magnet for the disparate factions, which were forming the emerging Liberal Party.
As befits such a grand building with such powerful members, the Club was also the focus for magnificent entertainments. The most well-known of this was the Ball of 15th June 1887, which celebrated Queen Victoria’s Jubilee.
This was described by the Graphic, an illustrated weekly paper, as “The entertainment of the year” with members of the Reform joined by the Prince of Wales, his eldest son and the Duke of Cambridge in an extravaganza that cost the Club £600 to put on.
But The Reform is probably best known for its fictional role as the site of the apocryphal wager in Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. Phileas Fogg, is a member of the Reform Club, and sets out to circumnavigate the world on a bet from his fellow members, beginning and ending at the Club.
Today The Reform still stands stately and proud on Pall Mall – even withstanding a near miss in 17th October 1941 when an incendiary bomb completely destroyed its next door neighbour – The Charlton Club – and destroyed half of the Reform Club’s roof.
The Club was even treated to a five year conservation project, which focused on the saloon, staircase and library all of which had suffered significant visual deterioration including losses of paint and gilding as well as being just generally dark and dirty with use, smoke and age.
This programme was completed in January 2014.
In a time when private members clubs seem to be less leather arm chairs and cigars and more cocktails and minor royalty, it is holding its own with over 2,700 members and a yearlong waiting list to get your name into the book. In line with other membership clubs of this pedigree the annual subscription is £1500 (plus a joining fee of £1843). No longer associated with any political party The Reform is now purely social and its current membership criteria are character, talent and achievement only.
But you do not need to join to visit and the Club encourages the public to visit by arranging tours of the Clubhouse (by prior arrangement) as well as participating in Open House London, which takes places annually in September.
Photography: Anthony Capo-Bianco
