Constitutional Club

The Constitutional Club was a London gentlemen's club, now dissolved, which was established in 1883 and disbanded in 1979. Between 1886 and 1959 it had a distinctive red and yellow Victorian Neo-Gothic terracotta building at 28 Northumberland Avenue, off Trafalgar Square.

The Club was closely aligned to the Conservative party, with members having to pledge support. The club was founded in anticipation of imminent franchise reform then being debated in parliament, which was eventually realised as the Representation of the People Act 1884. It was anticipated that as many more Conservative supporters would be given the vote, many would want to belong to a Conservative club. Existing Conservative clubs like the Carlton and the Junior Carlton feared that they would become inundated with membership applications from the new voters, so the Constitutional Club was founded with these new electors in mind. (The National Liberal Club, just around the corner from the Constitutional Club, was founded in 1882 with the same purpose in mind for the Liberal party, as the existing Liberal clubs, the Reform and the Devonshire, had been similarly oversubscribed.) The Constitutional Club's membership was originally limited to 6,500.

Despite being avowedly non-political, P.G. Wodehouse was a member of the Constitutional Club, and was reputed to have considered it his favourite London club. Seven of his stories describe a fictitious Senior Conservative Club in Northumberland Avenue, with a similar décor to the Constitutional, and which also features a Turkish bath, just like the Turkish bath found next door to the Constitutional. These books are Psmith in the City, Something Fresh, Leave it to Psmith (where the club is said to have 6,111 members), Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey, Full Moon, A Tithe for Charity, and Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin (which establishes its Northumberland Avenue address).

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