How they’re spluttering into their claret at Britain’s poshest club after its aristocratic owner opened its doors to lady members
THE scene is the basement dining room of Pratt’s, one of the most exclusive of London’s gentlemen’s establishments. The crimson walls are festooned with animal heads, including that of a rhinoceros, and cabinets of stuffed fish, one of which, a 28 lb pike, was caught by Prince Philip.
Around the single long table where members convivially sit over plates of the club’s signature mixed grill, there was only one topic of conversation this week.
It was the issue of admitting women to the club, as revealed by Mail diarist Richard Eden yesterday. And it was a conversation urgently repeated in those other last bastions of men- only privilege around St James’s clubland — White’s, Brooks’s and Boodle’s.
What has incensed the gentlemen of Pratt’s is that the decision was imposed without consultation or a ballot. Instead, they were informed by letter and email — a newish fad for a club that doesn’t have a website — that the committee had ‘unanimously agreed to change the club’s customs to welcome women as members’.
If that were not shock enough, what followed was. The changes, members were told, would take place ‘ with immediate effect’. There will be, it seems, no appeal.
So how has this news gone down with a membership drawn from the Brigade of Guards, Tory grandees and the aristocracy?
‘It’s absolutely chilling,’ harrumphs one member. ‘ In a world where there are few small pleasures in life, the certainties of Pratt’s and its rules was one.
‘At a stroke it’s all gone. And I suspect many of my fellow members will vote with their feet — if not actually resigning, they will simply stop coming in.’
Some would view the change as long overdue but many members beg to differ. ‘What is so galling,’ says one, ‘is that there has been no obvious pressure to open the club up to women. L ADIES are permitted to come as guests for a light lunch but in the evenings it is strictly for the men.’
It has been that way since Pratt’s was founded 166 years ago.
Smaller, more discreet and less ritzy than rival establishments, it has 700 members, yet its dining table sits just 14 people.
The club was a favourite of Sir Winston Churchill, a member for
36 years, whose widow Clementine donated a silver cigar box in his memory. Stories are still told of Churchill coming to the club after a late night at the Commons and cooking his own grilled chops.
The duke of Windsor was a member, as were his brothers the duke of York (later King George
VI) and the duke of Gloucester. They were drawn to its austere, bachelor- style atmosphere and relaxed rules that decreed gentlemen didn’t have to ‘dress’ in white tie and tails for dinner.
In the years since, there has been little adjustment to social conventions — so any unguarded opinion is treated with full discretion.
Of all the clubs in this insular world, Pratt’s occupies a unique place: it not just London’s poshest club, it is also owned by a single family. And that is why the members’ anger is so clearly focused.
Their target is the club’s proprietor, the 53-year old Earl of Burlington, heir of the duke of devonshire, Peregrine Cavendish. Until now, ownership of Pratt’s had been the duke’s responsibility — but the correspondence to members suggests a younger generation has taken over, for it is signed ‘Earl of Burlington Proprietor’.
In his letter, he says ‘evolving change’ is necessary to ‘enhance and invigorate the club’, a notion that had many a member spluttering into his claret yesterday.
And, unsurprisingly for a club that was said to have inspired the fictional Blades, 007’s hang-out in Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, conspiracy is taking root.
Some wonder if the change is to pre-empt any criticism, should a future Labour government impose laws forcing gentlemen’s clubs to accept women.
A minority, somewhat counterintuitively, suggest it is all part of a cunning plan. They argue that only the occasional wife or daughter of a member will want to join and eventually the idea of female membership will wither and die.
One long- time member has likened Burlington to Lord Warminster, the socialist peer in Anthony Powell’s novel A dance To The Music Of Time, said to have been modelled on prison reformer Lord Longford.
‘So much for the notion that the aristocracy are holding all these historic things in trust. In this case, Burlington is saying “it’s mine, I am doing what I please”.’
Everyone agrees, at least, that the club, with a six-year waiting list, is not short of money.
For decades it seemed the age of equality and sex discrimination legislation had bypassed the crustier London clubs. Some, such as the Athenaeum and the RAC, long ago welcomed the presence of ladies for their civilising effect.
But Burlington’s grandfather, the 11th duke, proudly asserted of his club: ‘We are one of the last bastions of male chauvinism.’
Why on earth would women want to join Pratt’s and if they do, what will they find there, in a London townhouse where at night the electric lamps are turned down low so candlelight reflects in the club’s silverware?
One is the quaint ritual by which all the stewards are known as ‘George’, regardless of their actual name. This was amended only with the arrival of the first female steward, who became ‘Georgina’.
But it is unlike the more raffish White’s, where members once made a £1,000 wager on whether a man could survive for 12 hours underwater, as noted in the club’s betting book. A ‘volunteer’ was hired and, according to legend, sunk in a ship by way of experiment. When the unfortunate man failed to resurface, the bet was deemed to have been lost.
Another story, possibly apocryphal, is of a waiter thrown from an upper- storey window at White’s by an Earl of Glasgow who told the club to ‘put him on the bill’.
BUT what Pratt’s members enjoy is a whiff of elitism, for theirs has long been regarded as the ultimate insiders’ club. It takes its name from William Nathaniel Pratt, who lived on the premises from 1841. Pratt was steward to the duke of Beaufort, who called at the house with friends one evening and enjoyed himself so much, drinking and gambling, that he kept returning.
After Pratt’s death, his widow and son continued the club. The devonshires bought it and took control in 1938 and it has remained in the family ever since.
It is certainly cosy and also has two bedrooms, which members can book for less than £100 a night, a bargain for Central London.
When the 11th duke was asked if he belonged to Pratt’s, he would reply: ‘In fact, it belongs to me.’
Most of its members have been Tories. Harold Macmillan was a regular fixture, as was the late Lord Lawson. Lord Heseltine is also a member, as are George Osborne and Lord Nicholas Windsor, son of the duke of Kent.
As the late duke of devonshire observed: ‘It’s a very agreeable place, where the most respected of public figures can get drunk and not be thought worse of. What’s said is meant to be confidential.
‘People have occasionally talked but if the culprit can be found, he gets a serious telling-off.
‘From my point of view, it was a very useful tool — and I used it.’
Ladies, you have been warned.