Third Eccentric Club
The third and longest-lived Eccentric Club was established by the theatrical costumier Jack Harrison on 21 November 1890 and disbanded in 1986. Immediately upon its foundation, it occupied the old premises of the Pelican Club in Denman Street, Soho. In 1893 it moved to 21 Shaftesbury Avenue. In 1914, the club moved to the former Dieudonné's Hotel at 9–11 Ryder Street, where it remained until its closure.
The club adopted the night-owl as its symbol. It was noted for the generosity of its members, who raised £25,000 for limbless soldiers during World War I, and every Christmas, Westminster's poor would queue up outside the Eccentric club for free meals.
Like many London clubs, it went through a period of financial hardship in the 1970s. The club closed its doors in 1984, ostensibly for a period of renovation, but was forced into liquidation in 1986.
In 1985, many of the club's membership were elected to the East India Club, where some of them continue to meet occasionally to this day in the American Bar which has a backward-running clock (a replica of the original which was once at the Eccentric Club). This is in keeping with numerous other London clubs of the nineteenth century which have lost their premises, but continue to meet as a society in an existing club; other examples include the Authors' Club now meeting in the Arts Club, the Portland Club meeting in the Savile Club, and the Canning Club now meeting in the Naval and Military Club. However, a considerable number of members refused to join the East India Club and instead joined the Royal Automobile Club and the Oxford and Cambridge Club, almost all members of the Eccentric Golfing Society went to the Ealing Golf Club.
Read more about this topic: Eccentric Club
Famous quotes containing the words eccentric and/or club:
“In a cabinet of natural history, we become sensible of a certain occult recognition and sympathy in regard to the most unwieldy and eccentric forms of beast, fish, and insect.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Women ... are completely alone, though they were born and bred upon this soil, as if they belonged to another class in creation.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. F, Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly Mirror of Fashions, pp. 363-4 (December 1870)