For whatever reason, Britain’s pre-eminent private members’ Club for men, The Garrick, has appeared in the press again this week.

For the benefit of younger readers, let’s go back 30 years for a moment. A number of private clubs in London’s St James’s and Pall Mall were for men only. Something kicked off in the media and, before one knew it, this inequality drew angry protests in front of clubs and much news coverage.

A few years ago, I met the catering manager for one such club who described what he called a dangerous scene trying to get to and from work each day during those tumultuous weeks. And yet, he pointed out, the club he worked for was already admitting Women members!

I don’t remember the outcome of those mid-1990s protests, but a few clubs decided to admit women. Everything died down and went back to normal.

Fast forward to 2018, and women-only clubs began migrating from Manhattan to London. Tatler billed them as ‘girl power 2.0’. That year, The Londonist went behind the scenes at the top all-women’s club, Allbright. As with traditional men’s clubs, the ones for women only displayed the same elitism (emphases mine):

Allbright’s aims are admirable but at £50 per month (plus a £300 joining fee), it has spawned a sisterhood not everyone can afford.

Women-only member’s clubs have been depicted as a way for working women to get ahead but if you can afford a private membership then the likelihood is you’re already ahead, while the working-class women who might benefit from its perks are likely to fall further behind.

Back among the panel, the whiff of expensive perfume just about masks the smell of freshly painted walls. It’s the stench of exclusivity which a private members club, by its very definition, can’t shake.

Interestingly, the most democratic — meant in the apolitical sense of the word — women’s only club is the oldest. In January 2024, Country & Town House wrote about it:

The oldest club on the list by miles, the University Women’s Club dates all the way back to 1883. This was a time when a small number of women were attending university, but they were not able to graduate – bar those studying at The University of London, which started awarding degrees to women from 1878. One of these women was Gertrude Jackson, who was a student of Girton College, Cambridge. She had the idea to set up a club for university women, and after three years over 200 women had shown interest. Over the next few decades the club continued to grow, eventually finding its permanent home in Mayfair’s Audley Square – where it has remained ever since. Despite its name, you don’t need a degree to join, and membership will give you access to subsidised bedrooms alongside a calendar of enlightening events and talks.

Details: From £543 per year, with a £300 joining fee. universitywomensclub.com

Contrast those dues with Allbright’s, also featured in the same article:

Details: Annual memberships start from £1,980, with a £300 joining fee. allbrightcollective.com

In England, there are any number of women-only clubs for everyday ladies who aren’t posh entrepreneurs. They have banded together as the National Association of Women’s Clubs.

So, with all that in mind, here is the question: what is so wrong with traditional private clubs for men? If women can have them, then surely men can retain theirs.

This week The Guardian muddied the waters about The Garrick.

Before going into their crafty articles, the Garrick Club was founded in 1831 in the heart of London’s Theatreland. It’s motto is ‘All the world’s a stage’.

Students of English literature will — or should — remember David Garrick, the 17th century genius who put London on the map for all things theatrical. He was an actor, a playwright and a producer. The world owes him a great debt of gratitude. The founders of the Garrick named the club after him, and rightly so.

The Garrick was created as a place where those involved in the theatre, which was viewed as an ignoble occupation, could meet respectable men — e.g. wealthy merchants, military officers — in a quiet, convivial atmosphere with good food on offer.

Over the decades, members of the club invited actors and authors to join them. The famous names are too long to list here, but you can read about them on the aforementioned Wikipedia link and in The Guardian articles cited below. Many famous men joined the club, coming from professions such as the law and politics. Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was a member as are several Anglican clergymen.

As for women, the Garrick decided in 2010 to allow them — whether as members’ spouses or guests — into the club as visitors. Is it so necessary to have anything more when women have their own private establishments?

Then there is the club tie, which I would know anywhere as a number of men appearing on current affairs shows wear theirs. Look for a salmon and lime green diagonal stripe. You can see a photo of a member wearing one in The Guardian‘s March 18 article, ‘”It isn’t acceptable”: Garrick Club remains a bastion of male elitism’.

That article goes into the unfairness of the Garrick’s men-only policy. However, the Garrick is not the only all-male private club in the heart of London. There are several others. However, it seems as if it’s the best known, the big target.

Another Guardian article, ‘Garrick Club men-only members list reveals roll-call of British establishment’, tells us how many hip and popular men in the arts are members.

These are all men who are popular on our television screens:

The actors Brian Cox and his Succession co-star Matthew Macfadyen are members of the club, which was founded in 1831 as a meeting place for actors and gentlemen and named in honour of the 18th-century actor David Garrick. So are Hugh Bonneville, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Suchet and Damian Lewis.

Here are more artsy types:

The chair of the Royal Ballet school, Christopher Rodrigues, the artistic director of Wigmore Hall, John Gilhooly, and the chair of the English National Opera, Harry Brünjes, are also members, alongside Alex Beard, the chief executive of the Royal Opera House.

And here are more from a variety of occupations:

… the football manager Roy Hodgson, Nigel Newton, the chief executive and founder of the Harry Potter publishers Bloomsbury, the fashion designer Paul Smith, the Dire Straits vocalist and guitarist Mark Knopfler, the literary agent Peter Straus, the hotel magnate Rocco Forte, the editor-in-chief of Daily Mail and General Trust, Paul Dacre, and the BBC’s world affairs correspondent John Simpson.

The chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (who directed the orchestra at the king’s coronation), Antonio Pappano, is a member, as is the gynaecologist who delivered Prince George, Marcus Setchell.

In ‘UK’s top civil servant and head of MI6 urged to quit Garrick Club’, we discovered more heretofore unknown members:

The UK’s top civil servant and the head of MI6 have been urged to quit the Garrick Club amid criticism that their membership of an organisation that has repeatedly blocked women from joining showed poor leadership and judgment.

Simon Case, who as cabinet secretary is the leader of half a million civil servants, was also condemned for arguing he had only joined the London gentleman’s club in an attempt to overturn its all-male policy.

Case and Richard Moore, head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), are part of a series of politicians, lawyers and other establishment figures whose membership of the Garrick was revealed by the Guardian, the first time its all-male list has been made public.

Case joined in 2019, a move that one former permanent secretary – a civil servant who leads an individual department – told the Guardian was “a poor signal in terms of leadership” of the civil service.

Jill Rutter, another former senior civil servant who has since worked on expert reports about government, said clubs like the Garrick were “clearly discriminatory”, adding: “I always hope that some government might make membership of a club like this a disqualification for a public appointment.”

A day after his Garrick membership was revealed, Case insisted to a parliamentary committee that he had joined with honourable motives.

At a subcommittee of the cross-party liaison committee of senior MPs, former Labour minister Liam Byrne asked Case how he could “foster a genuine culture of inclusiveness” while also being a Garrick member.

Case replied: “I have to say today my position on this one is clear, which is that if you believe profoundly in reform of an institution, by and large it’s easier to do if you join it to make the change from within rather than chuck rocks from the outside.”

Not every Garrick member wants to retain the male-only dynamic. Some members do want to admit women and have been quite vocal about it.

For now, what is the problem with the Garrick — and others — when women-only clubs abound, too? Leave each sex to its own establishments.