Clubs

This article is about clubs referring to a particular organization of people. For other article subjects named club see club (disambiguation).

A club is generally an association of people united by a common interest or goal, as opposed to any natural ties of kinship. Such clubs occur in all ancient states of which we have detailed knowledge. Once people started living together in larger groups, there was need for men with a common interest to be able to associate despite having no ties of kinship.

The term club now has broader implications. The Service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities; there are clubs devoted to all sorts of hobbies, sports, and games, political and religious clubs, Social Activites Clubs that appeal to a variety of interests, and so forth. See for example BSAC (a big British scuba diving club). The term Club can also refer to a nightclub or discotheque.

18th Century English Origins

The word "club," in the sense of an association to promote good-fellowship and social intercourse, only became common in England at the time of Tatler and The Spectator (1709‑1712). It is doubtful whether its use originated in its meaning of a knot of people, or from the fact that the members "clubbed" together to pay the expenses of their meetings. The oldest English clubs were merely informal periodic gatherings of friends for the purpose of dining or drinking together. Thomas Occleve (in the time of Henry IV) mentions such a club called La Court de Bone Compaignie, of which he was a member. John Aubrey (writing in 1659) says: "We now use the word clubbe for a sodality in a tavern.". For a long time, most organtations called "clubs" were gentlemen's clubs (in particular London clubs), but with the modern age the word usage has spread and many workman's organizations have imitated the club type of organization.

Of early clubs the most famous was the Bread Street or Friday Street Club, originated by Sir Walter Raleigh, and meeting at the Mermaid Tavern. Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden and Donne were among the members. Another such club was that which met at the Devil Tavern near Temple Bar; and of this Ben Jonson is supposed to have been the founder.

Coffee Houses

With the introduction of coffee-drinking in the middle of the 17th century, clubs entered on a more permanent phase. The coffee-houses of the later Stuart period are the real originals of the modern club-house. The clubs of the late 17th and early 18th century type resembled their Tudor forerunners in being oftenest associations solely for conviviality or literary coteries. But many were confessedly political, e.g. The Rota, or Coffee Club (1659), a debating society for the spread of republican ideas, broken up at the Restoration, the Calves Head Club (c. 1693) and the Green Ribbon Club (1675). The characteristics of all these clubs were:-

1. No permanent financial bond between the members, each man's liability ending for the time being when he had paid his "score" after the meal.
2. No permanent club-house, though each clique tended to make some special coffee-house or tavern their headquarters.

These coffee-house clubs soon became hotbeds of political scandal-mongering and intriguing, and in 1675 King Charles II issued a proclamation which ran: "His Majesty hath thought fit and necessary that coffee houses be (for the future) put down and suppressed.", because "in such houses divers false, malitious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the Defamation of his Majesty's Government and to the Disturbance of Peace and Quiet of the Realm." So unpopular was this proclamation that it was almost instantly found necessary to withdraw it, and by Anne's reign the coffee-house club was a feature of England's social life.

Social Clubs

Main article: Social clubs

From the 18th‑century clubs two types evolved: social and political. Social club were made up of the social elite, and became known as "Gentlemen's clubs". There are these types of clubs:-

• Social and dining clubs which are permanent institutions with a fixed club-house. The London coffee-house clubs in increasing their members absorbed the whole accommodation of the coffeehouse or tavern where they held their meetings, and this became the club-house, often keeping the name of the original keeper, e.g. White's, Brooks's, Arthur's, Boodle's. The modern club, sometimes proprietary, i.e. owned by an individual or private syndicate, but more frequently owned by the members who delegate to a committee the management of its affairs, first reached its highest development in London, where the district of St James's has long been known as "Clubland"; but the institution has spread all over the English-speaking world.

• Clubs which meet occasionally or periodically and often have no club-house, but exist primarily for some specific object. Such are the many purely athletic, sports and pastimes clubs, the Jockey Club, the Alpine, chess, yacht and motor clubs. Also there are literary clubs, musical and art clubs, publishing clubs; and the name of "club" has been annexed by a large group of associations which fall between the club proper and mere friendly societies, of a purely periodic and temporary nature, such as slate, goose and Christmas clubs, which do not need to be registered under the Friendly Societies Act.

Clubs in England and Wales were not controlled by the licensing system until the Licensing Act of 1902 was passed, or in Scotland until the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1903 was passed. They were passed mainly to check the abuse of "clubs" being formed solely to sell intoxicating liquors free from the restrictions of the Licensing Acts, but it applied to all clubs in England and Wales, of whatever kind, from the humblest to the most exalted Pall Mall club. The act required the registration of every club which occupied any premises habitually used for the purposes of a club and in which intoxicating liquor was supplied to members or their guests. The secretary of every club was required to furnish to the clerk to the justices of the petty sessional division a return giving:

1. the name and objects of the club
2. the address of the club
3. the name of the secretary
4. the number of members
5. the rules of the club relating to:
   1. the election of members and the admission of temporary and honorary members and of guests
   2. the terms of subscription and entrance fee, if any
   3. the cessation of membership
   4. the hours of opening and closing
   5. the mode of altering the rules

The same particulars must be furnished by a secretary before the opening of a new club. The act imposed heavy penalties for supplying and keeping liquor in an unregistered club. The act gave power to a court of summary jurisdiction to strike a club off the register on complaint in writing by any person on any of various grounds, including.:-

• If it had fewer than 25 members.
• If there was frequent drunkenness on the premises.
• If persons were habitually admitted as members without 48 hours' interval between nomination and admission.
• If the supply of alcoholic liquor was not under the control of the members or the committee.

The earliest clubs on the European continent were of a political nature. These in 1848 were repressed in Austria and Germany, and later clubs of Berlin and Vienna were mere replicas of their English prototypes. In France, where the term cercle is most usual, the first was Le Club Politique (1782), and during the French Revolution such associations proved important political forces (see Jacobins, Feuillants, Cordeliers). Of the purely social clubs in Paris the most notable were The Jockey Club (1833) and the Cercle de la Rue Royale.

In the United States clubs were first established after the War of Independence. One of the first in date was the Hoboken Turtle Club (1797), which still survived as of 1911.

Social Activities Clubs

Social Activities Clubs are a modern combination of several other types of clubs and reflect todays more eclectic and varied society. These clubs are centered around the activities available to the Club members in the City or area in which the club is located.

Events can include a broad range of activities from sporting events and social parties to the Ballet, the arts or book clubs. Unlike traditional clubs they are not limited to one kind of event or special interest, but include a broad range of events in their monthly calendars. The members choose which events the club is going to take part in based upon the changing interests of the members. The members themselves determine which events, of those offered, they will attend.

Because the purpose of these clubs is split between general social interaction and taking part in the events themselves, both single and married people can take part, though clubs tend to have more single members than married, and many clubs exist for only single people, or are limited just to married couples. There are even Activities clubs for gays and lesbians.

Membership can be limited or open to the general public, as can the events. Most clubs have a limited membership based upon specific criteria, and limit the events to members to increase the security of the members. That also creates an increased sense of commeradery and belonging among the members themselves.

Social Activities Clubs can be for profit, non-profit, and some are a mix of the two (A for profit club with a non-profit charitable arm, for instance).

For a more thorough discussion of club organizations in ancient Greece, see Ancient Greek clubs.
For a more thorough discussion of club organizations in the Roman Empire, see Roman clubs.

See also

• The Hellfire Club
• Chaos Computer Club
• The Slimelight Club
• Club-house
• Turtle Club
• Happy Land Social Club
• List of London's Gentleman's clubs
• Users' group