Conservative Club - Conservative Book

The Conservative Club was a London gentlemen's club, now dissolved, which was established in 1840. In 1950 it merged with the Bath Club, and was disbanded in 1981. From 1845 until 1959, the club occupied a building at 74 St James's Street.

As the name implies, the club was politically aligned to the Conservatives, but it was very much formed at the outset for dissident Tories out of favor with the Carlton Club, and its membership contained numerous rebellious MPs and activists during its history.

Attendees at the inaugural meeting on 29 July 1840 were Quintin Dick MP, Viscount Castlereagh MP, W. S. Blackstone MP, the Hon. Captain Duncombe MP, Thomas Hawkes MP, W. A. Mackinnon MP, John Neeld MP, P. D. Pauncefort Duncombe, Charles Hopkinson, and Thomas Walford. At first, the club met in the Lansdowne Hotel in Dover Street, before taking up rooms in the Royal Hotel at 88 St. James's Street, until the clubhouse's 1845 completion.

The clubhouse was designed by George Basevi and Sydney Smirke.

In 1941, the non-political Bath Club was hit by a bomb, and after several moves to temporary accommodation, they were granted the hospitality of the Conservative Club. As the decade wore on, it was decided to merge the two clubs - in 1950 they became the Bath Club in name, although retaining the Conservative Club's premises until the end of the decade.

The Carlton Club

The Carlton Club is a gentlemen's club in London which describes itself as the "oldest, most elite, and most important of all Conservative clubs." Many conservative books have been written about this club.

The club was founded in 1832, by Tory Peers, MPs and gentlemen, as a place to coordinate party activity after the party's defeat over the First Reform Act. It later played a major role in the transformation of the Tory party into its modern form as the Conservative Party. The Club lost its role as a central party office with the widening of the franchise in the late 1860s, but remained the principal venue for key political discussions between Conservative ministers, MPs and party managers.

The club was formed at the Thatched House Tavern in 1832 and its first premises were in Carlton Terrace (provided by Lord Kensington), from which it drew its name. These premises quickly became too small. The second club house was situated next to the Reform Club in Pall Mall, London, and was purpose-built in 1835. It was replaced by a third club house on the same site in 1856.

The Caen stone used on the façade of the third building proved unsuitable in the London atmosphere and had to be completely replaced in 1923–1924.

The club is most famous for the 'Carlton Club meeting' of 19 October 1922, in which backbench Conservative MPs decided to overthrow their leader Austen Chamberlain and withdraw from the David Lloyd George–led coalition. MPs voted 187 to 87 in favor of discontinuing the coalition, after dissenting speeches from Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin, with Baldwin saying that the fact Lloyd George was a 'dynamic force' was a danger to the stability of the Conservative party.

The club suffered a direct hit during the Blitz on 14 October 1940, Miraculously, no-one was killed in the explosion, although the entire building was destroyed. The Carlton at once moved to its current premises in 1940, at 69 St James's Street, London SW1, formerly the premises of Arthur's Club, which had closed earlier in 1940. The current clubhouse is architecturally important and includes two elegant dining rooms, together with a collection of political portraits and paintings dating back to the 18th century, imported from ruins of the old club house and the former Junior Carlton Club. The current Carlton has not retained any of the furnishings belonging to the building when it was Arthur's club.

The Junior Carlton Club, which was entirely separate from the Carlton itself, was established in 1864 and occupied a large purpose-built club house, completed in 1869, at 30 Pall Mall, almost opposite the Carlton. Their redevelopment of their premises into a modern 1960s office-style block as a prototype 'club of the future' led to mass resignations from that club, and in December 1977 it formally merged with the Carlton Club, with negotiations conducted by Harold Macmillan.

At 8:39 p.m. on 25 June 1990, the Carlton Club was bombed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), injuring more than 20 people. Lord Kaberry later died of his injuries received in the attack

Many Conservative politicians have been members. The leader of the Conservative Party is invited to become an honorary member. Iain Duncan Smith refused membership when it was offered to him.

Traditionally, only men could become full members after being proposed and seconded by a number of current members. From the 1970s onwards, women were allowed to become Associate Members, meaning they were unable to vote. Since becoming Conservative leader in 1975, Lady Thatcher has been an Honorary Member of the Club and as such, until 2008 was the only female member entitled to full membership.

David Cameron accepted Honorary Membership of the Club as of 22nd May 2008. Lady Thatcher was elected as the Club's second President (the first was Harold Macmillan) on May 2009.

An entirely separate, unrelated Ladies' Carlton Club was established after the First World War as a social and political centre for women Conservatives. It closed in 1958.

The current chairman is Lord Cope of Berkeley PC. A full history of the Club was published to mark its 175th anniversary in 2007. The Carlton Club 1832-2007 by Sir Charles Petrie and Alistair Cooke OBE is available from the Club and costs £30.

Many conservative clubs appear in conservative books and novels