Inside the Garrick, the elite men-only London club rocked by criticism

On aside street in co vent garden stands an imposing palazzo-style building, strangely out of place amid the burger joints and neon marquees of london’ s theater district. It houses the Garrick Club, one of britain’ s oldest men’ s clubs, and on any given weekday, a lunch table in its dining room is one of the hottest tickets in town.

A visitor lucky enough to cadge an invitation from a member might end up in the company of a Supreme Court justice, the master of an Oxford college or the editor of a London newspaper.

The odds are that person would be a man. Women are excluded from membership in the Garrick and permitted only as guests, a long-simmering source of tension that has recently erupted into a full-blown furor.

After The Guardian put a fresh spotlight on the Garrick’ s men only policy, two senior british government officials resigned from the club: Richard Moore, chief of the secret intelligence service, and Simon case, the cabinet secretary, who over sees nearly half a million public employees.

Only days earlier, under questioning at a parliamentary hearing, Case defended his membership by saying he was trying to reform an “antediluvian” institution from within rather “than chuck rocks from the outside,” a line that provoked derisory laughs.

Now, the club’s 1,300 membersare debating the future of the Garrick. some welcome the pressure to admit women as long overdue; others lament that doing so would forever change the character of the place.

“The Garrick Club has an absolute right to decide who its members are,” said Simon Jenkins, a columnist at The Guardian and a former editor of The Times of London who is a longtime member. “That said, it is indefensible for any social club these days not to have women as members.” “Judi Dench, for God’s sake — why shouldn’t she be a member?” he added.

Or Jude Kelly, an award-winningformer theater director. kelly, who now runs the charity Women of the world, said excluding women from membership in the Garrick deprived them of access to an elite social circle where professional opportunities inevitably flowed with the brandy.

“We’re in 2024,” Kelly said. “These are incredibly senior people. Many of them are espousing diversity and inclusion in their professional lives. being on the inside for along time makes you complicit.”

The Garrick Club is not the only private club in London that does not admit women: White’s, Boodle’s, the Beefsteak Club and the Savile Club are also men only. But what makes the Garrick unique is its star-studded membership list, which ranges across the worlds of politics, law, arts, theater and journalism.

Members include actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Brian Cox and Stephen Fry; Mark Knopfler, the guitarist of the rock band Dire Straits; Paul Smith, a fashion designer; BBC correspondent John Simpson; Oliver Dowden, Britain’s deputy PM, and, yes, King Charles III (on an honorary basis).

NYT Now, the club’s 1,300 members are debating the future of the Garrick .