The Oriental Club in London is a private members' club that was established in 1824.[ Leather Armchairs:The Chivas Regal Book of London Clubs, Charles Graves, 1963, Cassell London] It is now located in Stratford House in Stratford Place, near Oxford Street and Bond Street.
Foundation
The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany reported in its April 1824, issue:
[ The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany for April 1824, p. 473 online at books.google.com (accessed 28 January 2008)]
The founders included the Duke of Wellington and John Malcolm,[ _A Quiet Oasis in the Centre of London – main page of the Oriental Club's official web site (accessed 27 January 2008)] and in 1824 all the Presidencies and Provinces of British India were still controlled by the Honourable East India Company.
History and membership
The early years of the club, from 1824 to 1858, are detailed in a book by Stephen Wheeler published in 1925, which contains a paragraph on each member of the club of that period.
[Wheeler, Stephen (ed.), Annals of the Oriental Club, 1824–1858 (London, The Arden Press, 1925, xvi + 201pp)]
James Grant said of the club in The Great Metropolis (1837):[Grant, James, The Great Metropolis (1837), pp. 136–137, online at The Great Metropolis By James Grant at books.google.com (accessed 28 January 2008)]
The old Smoking Room is adorned with an elaborate ram's head snuff box complete with snuff rake and spoons, though most members have forgotten its original function.
On 29 July 1844, two heroes of the First Anglo-Afghan War, Sir William Nott and Sir Robert Sale, were elected as members of the club by the Committee as an "extraordinary tribute of respect and anticipating the unanimous sentiment of the Club".[Forrest, op. cit. p. 66]
On 12 January 1846, a special meeting at the club in Hanover Square presided over by George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, a former Governor-General of India, paid a public tribute to the dying Charles Metcalfe, 1st Baron Metcalfe, which Sir James Weir Hogg described as "a wreath upon his bier".[Metcalfe, Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, The Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe (1858) pp 429–431]
With the formation of the East India Club in 1849, the link with the Honourable East India Company began to decline.[Graves, Charles, Leather Armchairs: The Chivas Regal Book of London Clubs (London, Cassell & Co., 1963, with foreword by P. G. Wodehouse)]
In 1850, Peter Cunningham wrote in his Hand-Book of London:[Cunningham, Peter, Hand-Book of London, 1850, online at Victorian London – Entertainment and Recreation – Clubs – Oriental Club (accessed 28 January 2008)]
In 1861, the club's Chef de cuisine, Richard Terry, published his book Indian Cookery, stating that his recipes were "gathered, not only from my own knowledge of cookery, but from Native Cooks".[Terry, Richard, Indian Cookery, by Richard Terry, Chef-de-Cuisine at the Oriental Club (London, 1861, new edition ed. by Janet Clarke, Reprint Southover Press, 1998][Collingham, Lizzie, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (2006) p. 139]
Charles Dickens Jr. reported in Dickens's Dictionary of London (1879):[Charles Dickens Jr., Dickens's Dictionary of London (1879) quoted at Victorian London – Directories – Dickens's Dictionary of London, by Charles Dickens Jr., 1879 – "Oriental Club" (accessed 27 January 2008)] Dickens appears to have been quoting the club's own Rules and Regulations; that phrase appears there in 1889, when the total number of members was limited to eight hundred.[ Rules and Regulations for the Government of the Oriental Club (1889)]
When Lytton Strachey joined the club in 1922, at the age of forty-two, he wrote to Virginia Woolf[Taddeo, Julie Anne, Lytton Strachey and the Search for Modern Sexual Identity: The Last Eminent Victorian (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002) p. 58][Forrest, op. cit., p. 32]
Stephen Wheeler's 1925 book Annals of the Oriental Club, 1824–1858 also contains a list of the members of the club in the year 1924, with their years of election and their places of residence.[
]
In 1927, R. A. Rye wrote of the club's library – "The library of the Oriental Club ... contains about 4,700 volumes, mostly on oriental subjects",[Rye, Reginald Arthur, The Students' Guide to the Libraries of London (London, University of London Press, 1927) p. 48] while in 1928 Louis Napoleon Parker mentioned in his autobiography "... the bald and venerable heads of the members of the Oriental Club, perpetually reading The Morning Post.[Parker, Louis Napoleon, Several of my Lives (London, Chapman and Hall, 1928) p. 71]
In 1934, the novelist Alec Waugh wrote of[Alec Waugh, The Balliols (New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 1934) p. 474]
Another writer recalling the club in the 1970s says:[
]
Club houses
In its monthly issue for June 1824, The Asiatic Journal reported that "The Oriental Club expect to open their house, No. 16, Lower Grosvenor Street, early in June. The Members, in the mean time, are requested to send their names to the Secretary as above, and to pay their admission fee and first year's subscription to the bankers, Messrs Martin, Call and Co., Bond Street."[ The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and Its Dependencies dated June 1824, p. 682, online at The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and Its Dependencies (accessed 28 January 2008)]
The club's first purpose-built club house, in Hanover Square, was constructed in 1827–1828 and designed by Philip Wyatt and his brother Benjamin Dean Wyatt.[ Collage Record 20748 at cityoflondon.gov.uk (accessed 28 January 2008)] The construction of additions to the Clubhouse that were designed by Decimus Burton, in 1853, was superintended, when eventually commenced, in 1871, by his nephew Henry Marley Burton.
Edward Walford, in his Old and New London (Volume 4, 1878) wrote of this building[Walford, Edward, 'Hanover Square and neighbourhood' in Old and New London: Volume 4 (1878), pp. 314–326, online at british-history.ac.uk Report 45200 (accessed 28 January 2008)]
The club remained in Hanover Square until 1961. The club house there was in use for the last time on 30 November 1961.[Forrest, Denys Mostyn, The Oriental: Life Story of a West End Club (London, Batsford, 1968, 240 pp)] Early in 1962, the club moved into its present club house, Stratford House in Stratford Place, just off Oxford Street, London W1C, having bought the property for conversion in 1960.[ About and History at Oriental Club web site (accessed 28 January 2008)]
The central range of Stratford House was designed by Robert Adam and was built between 1770 and 1776 for Edward Stratford, 2nd Earl of Aldborough, who paid pound sterling4,000 for the site.[ It had previously been the location of the Lord Mayor of London's Banqueting House, built in 1565.][ The house remained in the Stratford family until 1832.][Stratford, Gerald H. The Stratfords, (Chapter 13, Belan, Aldborough, and Stratford House) online at Chapter 13, Belan, Aldborough, and Stratford House (accessed 27 January 2008)] It belonged briefly to Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, a son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia.[ AN OASIS IN LONDON'S WEST END at asia-major.com (accessed 27 January 2008)] The house was little altered until 1894, when its then owner, Walter Guthrie, added a second storey to the east and west wings and a colonnade in front.[ In 1903, a new owner, the Liberal politician Sir Edward Colebrook, later Baron Colebrooke, reconstructed the Library to an Adam design. In 1908, Lord Derby bought a lease and began more alterations, removing the colonnade and adding a third storey to both wings. He took out the original bifurcated staircase (replacing it with a less elegant single one), demolished the stables and built a Banqueting Hall with a grand ballroom above.][
]
In 1960, the Club began to convert its new property. The ballroom was turned into two floors of new bedrooms, further lifts were added, and the banqueting hall was divided into a dining room and other rooms.[ The club now has a main drawing room, as well as others, a members' bar, a library and an Antechamber, a billiards room, an internet suite and business room, and two (non)smoking rooms, as well as a dining room and 32 bedrooms.][ Drawing Rooms at Oriental Club web site (accessed 26 February 2011)][ Facilities at Oriental Club web site (accessed 27 January 2008)]
Stratford House is a Grade I listed building.[* Listed Buildings in Stratford Place, Westminster – map at westminster.gov.uk (accessed 29 January 2008)]
The flag flying above the club house bears an Indian elephant, which is the badge of the club.[
]
Art collection
The club possesses a fine collection of paintings, including many early portraits of Britons in India such as Warren Hastings.[Mark Tully, Why Queen Victoria’s art reflects her true feelings about India, online at dawn.com (accessed 28 January 2008)] The Bar is overlooked by a painting of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore (1750–1799).[ There are portraits of the club's principal founders, the first Duke of Wellington (by H. W. Pickersgill) and Sir John Malcolm (by Samuel Lane). Other portraits include Lord Cornwallis (1738–1805), also by Samuel Lane, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy, 1st Baronet (1783–1859), by John Smart, Clive of India (1725–1774) by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Major-General Stringer Lawrence by Joshua Reynolds, Major General Sir Thomas Munro, 1st Baronet (1761–1827), by Ramsay Richard Reinagle, Edward Stratford, second Earl of Aldborough (died 1801) by Mather Brown, Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt (c. 1769–1849) and William Nott, both by Thomas Brigstocke, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne (1845–1927) by Sydney P. Kenrick after John Singer Sargent, Richard Strachey (1817–1908) by Lowes Dickinson (the bequest of his widow, Jane Maria Strachey), Charles Metcalfe, 1st Baron Metcalfe by F. R. Say, Thomas Snodgrass by an unknown artist, and a bust of the first Lord Lake.][Forrest, op. cit., p. 8, pp 228–232]
President of the club
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1824–1852: Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (Honorary President)
[
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After Wellington's death in 1852, no further presidents were appointed.[Forrest, op. cit., pp 80 & 109]
Chairmen of the committee
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1837: Pulteney Malcolm GCB Royal Navy (brother of the founder, Sir John Malcolm)
[
]
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1838: George William Cox
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1839 and 1844-1845: Rt. Hon. Holt Mackenzie
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1840: Field Marshal Sir George Pollock, 1st Baronet
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1841: Sir Herbert Abingdon Draper Compton (Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Bombay, Advocate-General of Madras and Calcutta)
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1843: Sir Edward Colebrooke, 4th Baronet, MP
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1846: G. W. Traill (namesake of Traill's Pass)
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1853: Lestock Robert Reid (Governor of Bombay, 1846-1847)
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1867-1868: Lieutenant-General Sir George St Patrick Lawrence
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1872: Cecil Beadon (Lieutenant-Governor of the Bengal Presidency 1862-1866)
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1877-1878 and 1880: Major-General Christopher Palmer Rigby (British Consul in Zanzibar, 1858-1860)
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1881: George Kellner
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1882: General Sir Henry Edward Landor Thuillier (Surveyor General of India, 1861-1878)
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1883-1884, 1886-1888, 1891-1892: James Adair Crawford (Chief political resident of the Persian Gulf, acting Chief Commissioner of Balochistan)
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1918: C. A. MacDonald
[Forrest, op. cit., p. 134]
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1931-1932, 1936, 1938-1940: Sir Henry Wheeler (Governor of Bihar and Orissa 1922-1927, member of the Council of India 1927-1937)
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1932–1933: Sir Reginald Mant
[Forrest, op. cit., p. 150]
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1941: Alfred Pickford
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1951: Sir Charles Alexander Innes KCSI CIE (Governor of Burma, 1927–1932)
[
]
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1956: Arthur Morse (Head of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation)
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1954 and 1958–1962: Sir Arthur Bruce
[Forrest, op. cit., p. 16]
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1966-1967: Geoffrey Bozman
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1968: Sir Percival Joseph Griffiths KBE CIE
Founding committee
The first club committee of 1824 included:
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Lord William Bentinck GCB (1774–1839)
[
]
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Charles Williams-Wynn MP (1775–1850)
[
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Alured Clarke GCB (1744–1832)
[
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Field Marshal Sir George Nugent, Bt GCB (1757–1849)
[
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Vice-Admiral Sir Richard King, Bt (1774–1834)
[
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Pulteney Malcolm (1768–1838)
[
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John Malcolm (1769–1833)
[
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Sir George Staunton Bt, MP (1781–1859)
[
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Sir Charles Forbes, 1st Baronet MP
[
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Sir Thomas Hislop, 1st Baronet
[
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General Sir Miles Nightingall KCB, MP
[
]
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Major General Sir Patrick Ross GCMG KCH (1778–1850)
[
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Sir Robert Townsend Farquhar, 1st Baronet MP (1776-1830)
[
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Captain Sir Christopher Cole KCB, MP (1770-1836)
[
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Lieutenant General Malcolm Grant (1762-1831)
[
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Major General Robert Haldane, CB (d. 1826)
[
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Vice Admiral Robert Stuart Lambert (1771-1836)
[
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Major General Charles Rumley
[
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William Tuyll (d. 1864)
[
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Lieutenant Colonel William Charles Alston
[
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Colonel John Baillie of Leys MP (1772-1833)
[
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Alexander Boswell, Esq.
[
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Other notable members
Source:[Who's Who and Club Book 2016]
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Lieutenant-General Sir Alexander Campbell, 1st Baronet, GCB (1760–1824)
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Sir Samuel Young, 1st Baronet (1766-1826), colonial administrator
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Major-General Sir Thomas Munro, 1st Baronet KCB (1761-1827), Scottish East India Company Army officer, governor of Madras
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Henry Blackwood (1770–1832)
[
]
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Pownoll Pellew, 2nd Viscount Exmouth (1786–1833)
[
]
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Andrew Blayney, 11th Baron Blayney (1770-1834)
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Lieutenant General Sir John Colquhoun Grant KCB GCH (1772–1835), cavalry general
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Lieutenant General Sir Edward Barnes, GCB (1776-1838), Governor of Sri Lanka
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Henry Peachey, 3rd Baron Selsey (1787-1838), Royal Navy officer and peer
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Edward Clive, 1st Earl of Powis (1754-1839), Governor of Madras from 1798 to 1803
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Lord William Bentinck (1774-1839), first Governor-General of India from 1834 to 1835
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Omar/Omer Effendi (fl. 1830-1840s), Cambridge-educated Egyptian Ottoman diplomat, protégé of Muhammad Ali of Egypt and aide-de-camp to his son Ibrahim Pasha
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Neil Benjamin Edmonstone (1765-1841), civil servant in and director of the East India Company
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Lieutenant-General Sir Samuel Ford Whittingham (1772-1841), British and Spanish army officer during the Napoleonic Wars
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Francis Forbes (1784-1841), Chief Justice of Newfoundland, and the first Chief Justice of New South Wales
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Alexander Burnes (1805-1841), Scottish military officer and diplomat associated with the Great Game and the exploration of Bukhara; murdered by a mob in Kabul in 1841
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General Sir Lionel Smith, 1st Baronet (1778-1842), Governor of Tobago (1833), Governor of Barbados (1833–1836), Governor of Jamaica (1836-1839), Governor of Mauritius (1840-1842)
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George FitzClarence, 1st Earl of Munster (1794–1842), son of King William IV
[Thompson, Jason, Egyptian Encounters (Cairo, American University in Cairo Press, 2002) p. 127 footnote]
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Sir Francis Workman-Macnaghten, 1st Baronet (1763-1843), Anglo-Irish judge in India
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General Sir Archibald Campbell, 1st Baronet GCB (1769-1843), commander of British forces in the First Anglo-Burmese War
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Hudson Lowe GCMG (1769–1844)
[ (1769-1844), governor of Saint Helena from 1816 to 1821, jailor of Napoleon in exile
]
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William Nott (1782–1845), distinguished soldier of the First Anglo-Afghan War, by special election
[
]
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Sir Robert Sale (1782–1845), distinguished soldier of the First Anglo-Afghan War, by special election
[
]
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Admiral Sir Philip Charles Durham, GCB (1763-1845), Royal Navy officer in the American War of Independence, French Revolutionary War, and Napoleonic Wars
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Sir James Rivett-Carnac, 1st Baronet (1784–1846), statesman and politician, Governor of the Bombay Presidency from 1838 to 1841
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Charles Metcalfe, 1st Baron Metcalfe (1785-1846), acting Governor-General of India, Governor of Jamaica and Governor General of the Province of Canada
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Dwarkanath Tagore (1794–1846), early Indian industrialist and grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore
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John Doveton (1768-1847), military officer in the Madras Army
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Lieutenant-General Sir Colin Campbell KCB (1776–1847), Governor of British Ceylon, 1841-1847
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Sir William Young, 1st Baronet (d. 1848), politician and landowner, owner of Bailieborough Castle
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George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland (1784–1849), Governor-General of India 1835–1842
[
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Shahzada Muhammad Jamal-ud-din Sultan Sahib (Prince Jamh O Deen of Mysore (1795-1842), 12th son of Tipu Sultan, the "Tiger of Mysore", whose portrait hangs in the bar
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Lord George Bentinck (1802-1848), Conservative politician and racehorse owner
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Edward Paget (1775-1849), Groom of the Bedchamber to George IV; Governor of Ceylon, 1822; Commander-in-Chief, India, 1823-1825
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Major-General Prince Waldemar of Prussia (1817-1849)
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Major-General Sir Ephraim Gerrish Stannus (1784-1850), military officer in the service of the East India Company
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Thomas Fletcher Waghorn (1800-1850), naval officer and explorer, pioneer of an overland route to India through Egypt
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Henry St George Tucker (1771–1851), financier and official of the East India Company
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James Ruddell-Todd (1783-1852), MP for Honiton
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Sir Thomas Metcalfe, 4th Baronet (1795-1853), brother of Lord Metcalfe, agent of the Governor General of India at the court of Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar
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William Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford (1768–1854)
[Forrest, op. cit. p. 30]
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Henry Pottinger (1789-1856), Anglo-Irish soldier and colonial administrator, first Governor of Hong Kong
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Walter Henry Medhurst (1796-1857), Congregationalist missionary to China, early translator of the Bible into Chinese
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Sir Henry Strachey, 2nd Baronet (1772–1858)
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James Lushington (1779-1859), MP
[Metcalfe, op. cit. p. 320]
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Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779–1859), Governor of Bombay and author
[Forrest, op. cit. p. 28]
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Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy, 1st Baronet (1783–1859), Indian-Parsi merchant and philanthropist
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William Butterworth Bayley (1782-1860), director and chairman of the British East India Company, acting Governor-General of India, 1828
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John Elphinstone, 13th Lord Elphinstone, 1st Baron Elphinstone, GCB, GCH, PC (1807-1860), Governor of Madras and Bombay, Privy Counsellor, and Scottish representative peer
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William Henry Carmichael-Smyth (1780-1861), military officer in the service of the East India Company, stepfather of William Makepeace Thackeray
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General Sir Robert Houstoun (1780-1862), military officer in the service of the East India Company
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Laurence Oliphant (1791-1862), 8th Laird of Condie and 30th Chief of Clan Oliphant, MP for Perth, 1832-1837
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(1809-1862), Prussian Lieutenant-General
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Lieutenant-General Sir James Outram, 1st Baronet (1803-1863), significant figure in the Indian Rebellion of 1857
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Ahmed Nazım Bey (d. 1863), Ottoman Commissioner to the 1862 International Exhibition, eldest son of Mehmed Fuad Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
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Sir John Spencer Login (1809-1863), Scottish surgeon, guardian of fellow member Maharajah Duleep Singh and the Koh-i-Noor diamond
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Sa'id of Egypt (1822-1863), Khedive of Egypt
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William Monteith (1790-1864), soldier, diplomatist and historian associated with the East India Company
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George "Squire" Osbaldeston (1786-1866), Member of Parliament and sportsman
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General Sir George de Lacy Evans GCB (1787–1870), Irish officer in the British Army and Member of Parliament
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Thomas Maddock (1792-1870), colonial administrator and MP
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John Wood (1812-1871), Scottish naval officer, cartographer, and explorer of Central Asia
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Shahzada Sir Ghulam Muhammad Sultan Sahib, KCSI (1795-1872), 14th son and successor of Tipu Sultan, the "Tiger of Mysore", whose portrait hangs in the bar
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(1795-1874), Prussian Major-General
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Sir James Ranald Martin (1796-1874), military surgeon in Colonial India, early critic of deforestation
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Alexis-François Rio (1797-1874), French art historian
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Archdale Wilson, GCB (1803-1874), Bengal Army and British Army artillery officer, veteran of the Second Sikh War and the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery
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Sir Edward Ryan PC FRS (1793-1875), lawyer, judge, reformer of the British Civil Service and patron of science. Chief Justice of Bengal, 1833–1843
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Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1797–1875), traveller, writer and pioneer Egyptologist of the 19th century, "the Father of British Egyptology"
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General John Briggs (1785–1875), officer in the army of the East India Company, Persian scholar
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Sir James Hogg, 1st Baronet (1790-1876), Irish-born businessman, lawyer and politician and Chairman of the East India Company
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Julius von Mohl (1800-1876), German Orientalist
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Sir Thomas Henry (1807-1876), Anglo-Irish police magistrate, originator of the English law of extradition
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Mohan Lal Kashmiri (1812-1877), Indian traveler, diplomat, and author, player in the Great Game
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Alfred Burton (1802-1877), Mayor of Hastings, and son of the pre-eminent property developer James Burton. Alfred Burton was a long-standing member of the club, to which he donated numerous books and pictures,
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John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence (1811-1879), Viceroy of India 1864-1869
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John Hutt (1795-1880), Governor of Western Australia 1839-1846
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Theo Metcalfe (1828-1883), civil servant of the East India Company in Bengal
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Mansur Ali Khan, last Nawab of Bengal (1830–1884)
[Forrest, op. cit. p. 84]
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The Honourable Robert Grimston (1816-1884), amateur and a pioneer of electric telegraphy
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John Farley Leith QC, MP (1808-1887), barrister and Liberal politician
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Sir Robert Montgomery GCSI, KCB (1809-1887), Chief Commissioner of Oudh 1858-1859, Lieutenant Governor of Punjab 1859-1865
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Iqbal al-Daula Bahadur (1808–1888), pretender to the throne of Awadh, grandson of Saadat Ali Khan II, the sixth Nawab
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Field Marshal Robert Cornelis Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala (1810-1890), veteran of campaigns in India and China, leader of the British Expedition to Abyssinia
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Major-General Sir Frederick Abbott, CB (1805-1892), British Indian Army officer and engineer of the East India Company
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Sir John Peter Grant, GCMG, KCB (1807-1893), Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal (1859–1862) and as Governor of Jamaica
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Duleep Singh (1838-1893), youngest son of Ranjit Singh (the "Lion of Punjab"), last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire
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General Sir George Balfour KCB (1809-1894), British Army officer and Liberal MP 1872-1892
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Patrick Smollett (1804-1895), Conservative Party politician, MP for Dunbartonshire and Cambridge
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Edmund Drummond (1814-1895), Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, 1863-1868
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Thomas Powys, 4th Baron Lilford (1833-1896), peer and ornithologist
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William Tozer (1829–1899), colonial bishop
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St. George Jackson Mivart (1827-1900), biologist and critic of natural selection
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Field Marshal Sir Neville Bowles Chamberlain GCSI (1820-1902), Commander-in-chief of the Madras Army
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Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet (1826-1902), Governor of Bombay from 1877 to 1880, Conservative MP for Evesham
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Sir Donald Horne Macfarlane (1830-1904), Scottish East India merchant and MP
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Sir John Strachey GCSI CIE (1823-1907), Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, acting Governor-General in February 1872
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Richard Strachey (1817–1908), colonial administrator, soldier, and scientist, President of the Royal Geographical Society
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Robert Needham Cust (1821-1909), British administrator, judge, and scholar in colonial India
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Sir George Sutherland Mackenzie KCMG (1844-1910) British businessman and explorer
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Henry George Keene CIE (1826-1915), civil servant, historian of medieval and modern India
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Sir William Chichele Plowden KCSI (1832-1915), member of the Imperial Legislative Council, Liberal MP
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Colonel Dugald McTavish Lumsden CB (1851-1915), Scottish-born British army officer, founder of Indian cavalry unit Lumsden's Horse in the Second Boer War
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Henry Plowden (1840-1920), India-born first-class cricketer, barrister and judge
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George Ernest Morrison (1862-1920), Australian journalist, book collector, and representative of the Republic of China during World War I
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Sir Edward Cooper, 1st Baronet (1848-1922), Lord Mayor of London 1919-1920
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Sir Allan Arthur (1857-1923), Scottish international rugby player, civil servant, and India merchant; Sheriff of Kolkata, 1890
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Fielding Clarke (1851-1928), colonial barrister, civil servant and jurist. Chief Justice of Fiji, Hong Kong and Jamaica
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Ludovic Porter (1869-1928), colonial administrator
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Sir Ernest Mason Satow, GCMG, PC (1843-1929), diplomat, scholar, and Japanologist
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Sir William Thomas Taylor, KCMG (1848-1931), Accountant General and Controller of Revenue of Ceylon, Colonial Secretary of Singapore, Resident-General for the Federated Malay States
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James Lyle Mackay, 1st Earl of Inchcape (1852–1932)
[ INCHCAPE, James Lyle Mackay, 1st Earl of in Who Was Who 1929–1940 (London, A. & C. Black, 1967 reprint: )]
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Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), writer and critic, founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of Eminent Victorians
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Francis Spring (1849-1933), Anglo-Irish civil engineer and member of the Imperial Legislative Council; pioneer of the Indian Railways
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Ranjitsinhji (1872-1933), 12th Jam Sahib of Nawanagar State and cricketer
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Sir Robert Warrand Carlyle KCSI CIE (1859-1934), medieval historian and India civil servant; Inspector-General of Bengal Police
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Sir Archibald Birkmyre, 1st Baronet (1875–1935),
[ BIRKMYRE, Sir Archibald, 1st Bt of Dalmunzie in Who Was Who 1897–2006 online (accessed 28 January 2008)] Scottish jute manufacturer and India merchant
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Stanley Bois (1864-1938), businessman in Ceylon
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Sir John Prescott Hewett GCSI, KBE, CIE, GCSStJ (1854-1941), Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh and Conservative MP for Luton
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John Powys, 5th Baron Lilford (1863-1945), peer and cricketer
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Edward Rosling (1863-1946), politician and tea planter in Ceylon
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Percy Bates (1879-1946), shipping magnate, Chairman of the Cunard Line
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Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor CB KBE FRCS FACS (1878-1960), Surgeon Rear-Admiral in the Royal Navy
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Robert Menzies (1894-1978), 12th Prime Minister of Australia, 1939-1941 and 1949-1966
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Sir Narayana Raghavan Pillai of Elenkath, KCIE, CBE, ICS (1898-1992) Former Governor of the Bank of India & Secretary of State; grandson of Nanoo Pillai of Elenkath, Diwan of Travancore
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Sir Alec Ogilvie (1913-1997), Calcutta businessman
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Sir Charles Philip Haddon-Cave KBE CMG (1925-1999), Chief Secretary of Hong Kong, 1971-1981
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Sir John Jardine Paterson (1920–2000), Calcutta businessman
['Jardine Paterson, Sir John (Valentine)', in Who Was Who (A. & C. Black, 1920–2008), online edition by Oxford University Press, December 2007, accessed 5 January 2011]
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Austen Kark (1926–2002), managing director of the BBC World Service
[ KARK, Austen Steven in Who's Who 2002 (London, A. & C. Black, 2002)]
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Baron Wrenbury (1927-2014)
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George Martin (1926-2016), producer of The Beatles
[ MARTIN, George Henry in Who's Who 2007 (London, A. & C. Black, 2007)]
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David Tang (1954-2017), Hong Kong and London businessman
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William Charles Langdon Brown CBE (b. 1931), banker and former Member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council
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Francis Grosvenor, 8th Earl of Wilton (b. 1934)
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Simon Mackay, Baron Tanlaw (b. 1934), businessman, horologist, grandson of Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, last White Rajah of Sarawak and his wife the Sylvia Brooke
[ TANLAW, Simon Brooke Mackay, Baron cr 1971 (Life Peer) in Who's Who 2007 (London, A. & C. Black, 2007)]
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Mark Tully (b. 1936) former Chief of Bureau, BBC, New Delhi
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Evelyn Baring, 4th Earl of Cromer (b. 1946), of the Barings banking family
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Baron Shepherd (b. 1949)
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Keiichi Hayashi (b. 1951), Representative of the Emperor of Japan
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Edward Stanley, 19th Earl of Derby (b. 1962)
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Peter Mackay, 4th Earl of Inchcape (b. 1943)
[ INCHCAPE, Kenneth Peter Lyle Mackay, 4th Earl of in Who's Who 2007 (London, A. & C. Black, 2007)]
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Ravi Kumar, Pillai of Kandamath. Indian aristocrat
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Christopher Beazley MEP (b. 1952)
[ BEAZLEY, Christopher John Pridham in Who's Who 2007 (London, A. & C. Black, 2007)]
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Swapan Dasgupta (b. 1955) Indian MP and journalist
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Alan Duncan (b. 1957), Minister of State for International Development, Minister of State for Europe and the Americas
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Richard Harrington, Baron Harrington of Watford, MP (b. 1957), Minister of State for Refugees
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David Davies MP (b. 1970), Secretary of State for Wales
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James Innes (b. 1975), British author
Members in fiction
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Early in William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair (1848), Thackeray says of Joseph Sedley that "...he dined at fashionable taverns (for the Oriental Club was not as yet invented)."
[William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter III] By the time of Sedley's return from India in 1827, "His very first point, of course, was to become a member of the Oriental Club, where he spent his mornings in the company of his brother Indians, where he dined, or whence he brought home men to dine."[Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter LX][Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914 (1988), p. 94]
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In Thackeray's The Newcomes (1855), Colonel Thomas Newcome and Binnie are members of the Oriental Club.
[McMaster, Rowland, Thackeray's Cultural Frame of Reference: Allusion in the Newcomes (1991) p.144] Writing of Thackeray, Francis Evans Baily says "...the Anglo-Indian types in his novels, including Colonel Newcome, were drawn from members of the Oriental Club in Hanover Square".[Baily, Francis Evans, Six Great Victorian Novelists (London, Macdonald, 1947), p. 15]
Bibliography
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Baillie, Alexander F., The Oriental Club and Hanover Square (London, Longman, Green, 1901, 290 pp, illustrated)
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Wheeler, Stephen (ed.), Annals of the Oriental Club, 1824–1858 (London, The Arden Press, 1925, xvi + 201 pp)
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Forrest, Denys Mostyn, The Oriental: Life Story of a West End Club (London, Batsford, 1968, 240 pp)
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Riches, Hugh A History of the Oriental Club (London, Oriental Club, 1998)
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See also
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List of London's gentlemen's clubs
External links
