Reforming splendour

The Reform Club, Pall Mall SW1 An attempt to unify the Radical and Whig interests as a coherent political force prompted work to what aimed to be the most magnificent club in London, as John Goodall discovers

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ON May 17, 1837, some members of a new club established to promote political reform-the defining parliamentary issue of the moment-compiled their thoughts about the intended appearance of their future club house. The note, probably drafted by the railway investor and landowner Sir Henry Webb, was strikingly confident in tone. 'We the undersigned submit that as the Reform Club will be composed of the greatest number of members and is established for the promotion of the most important objects, so it is useful and becoming that it be assembled in the most distinguished building of all the clubs at the west end of the town.' 

It should, the note continues, be 'a large and imposing building of three storeys [underlined]... after the model of the Venetian or Italian palaces; that the basement, ground floor and first floor be appropriated to the sole uses of the club; but for the convenience of the members and in order to meet the great expenses of a heavy ground rent and an expensive building-that the entire range of the second storey with attics attached be divided into apartments or chambers to be let only to members of the club; that there be a separate approach and stair to this floor and no interior communication whatsoever between it and the club.'

This document predates the appointment of the architect of the Reform Club, Charles Barry, by more than six months, yet precisely anticipates the essential form of the building that he subsequently constructed between 1838 and 1841. What it makes clear is that this club house was understood from the first to be the architectural expression of a political cause and that the scale of the building aimed to beggar competition. It should be added that the inclusion of club chambers for rent was a novelty.