Clubs and Politics
Sharp was a founder member of the intellectual 'King of Clubs’ conversation club as well as a leading figure in founding the London Institution in 1806, a venue for popular education and a forerunner of London University . He belonged to a great many London Clubs and Societies, such as Brooks's, the Athenaeum, the 'Unincreasable', the 'Eumelean' and the 'Clifford-street Debating Club'. An early member of the Literary Society, in 1787 he became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and in 1806 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, his application for the latter being supported by such names as Charles Burney Jnr, James Watt and Humphry Davy. During the period 1810-1812 Sharp was appointed Prime Warden of the Fishmongers' Company in London and at different times represented the Whig party as a dissenting Member of Parliament for Castle Rising from 1806 to 1812, Portarlington from 1816 to 1819 and Ilchester from 1826 to 1827. In the House of Commons he often sat next to his friend, Samuel Whitbread, and supported his move for popular education.
Read more about this topic: Richard Sharp (politician)
Famous quotes containing the words clubs and, clubs and/or politics:
“As night returns bringing doubts
That swarm around the sleeper’s head
But are fended off with clubs and knives ...”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor coöperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made of? And depend upon it, our virtue will not live on the interest of our money. He expects no income, but outgoes; so soon as we begin to count the cost, the cost begins. And as for advice, the information floating in the atmosphere of society is as evanescent and unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules.”
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—Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)