Formation and Membership
The Club was founded at a meeting held at the Thatched House Tavern on 30 June 1821 and held its first Annual General Meeting at Willis's Rooms on 27 April 1822, under the chairmanship of Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh.
It was agreed that the Club would admit no more than one thousand members and former members of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, five hundred from each. This limitation remained in place for more than one hundred years. As a result, only eight years after the Club's foundation, its waiting list was so long that a second club was formed, called the Oxford and Cambridge Club.
The initial entrance-fee was set at twenty-five guineas and the annual subscription at six guineas. By 1879, these figures had increased to thirty guineas and eight guineas. It was reported in Dickens's Dictionary of London (1879) that "The members elect by ballot, one black ball in ten excludes".
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