GreatLondonTradition

GreatLondonTradition. --SteveF

From London. The Biography by Peter Ackroyd, ISBN:1-85619-716-6, pp.360+

'Clubbing' is first used as a term in the seventeenth century; in July 1660, Peyps wrote that 'We went to Wood's our old house, for clubbing'. But it was in the succeeding century that a variety of clubs emerged for a variety of members. ...

Characteristically the drinking clubs of the eighteenth century? met weekly, in a tavern, to eat and sing and debate. ... There was the Beefsteak Club, which met in a room in the Covent Garden Theatre, and was devoted to drinking and wit 'interspersed with snatches of song and much personal abuse'. ...

These were centers of argument in the combative London tradition, combining obscene songs and egalitarian speeches in equal measure. ... There was a No-Nose Club, and a Farting Club in Cripplegate where the members 'meet once a Week to poison the Neighbourhood, and with their Noisy Crepitations attempt to outfart one another'. C.W. Heckethorn, in London Souveniers, intones a litany of other London clubs: a Surly Club at a tavern near Billinsgate, filled with the tradesmen of that quarter who met to sharpen 'the practice of contradition and of foul language'; a Spit-Farthing Club, which met weekly at the Queen's Head in Bishopsgate, and was 'composed chiefly of misers and skinflints'; and the Club of Broken Shopkeepers, which met at Tumble Down Dick in Southwark and comprised bankrupts and others unfortunate in trade. The Mock Heroes Club met in an alehouse in Baldwin's Gardens, where each member would assume the name of a 'defunct hero', while the Lying Club congregated at the Bell Tavern in Westminster where 'no true word' was to be uttered during its proceedings. A Man-Killing Club which met at a tavern in a back-alley adjoining St Clement Danes admitted to membership no one 'who had not killed his man'; but there was also a Humdrum Club 'composed of gentlemen of peaceable dispositions, who were satisfied to meet at a tavern, smoke their pipes and say nothing till midnight' when they went homeward. ³host³³date³December 14, 2002³agent³Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)³GreatLondonTraditio ³³GreatLondonTradition