Reform Club

The Reform Club was in the beginning a club of gentlemen in the south of Stake Badly (with number 104) in the center of London. He admits the women since 1981. In 1977, its expenses of adhesion were highest of London.

It was founded in 1836 by Edward Ellice (1783-1863), a Whip whig, with the richnesses acquired thanks to the Compagnie of Hudson Bay but whose zeal was used in priority to make safe the vote of the Reform Act 1832. The new club, for the members of the two rooms of the Parlement, had vocation to be a center for the radical ideas that the bill represented, and a bastion of liberal thought and progressist which was to join firmly the Liberal party, which had largely succeeded Whigs at the semi-19th century.

Brooks' S Club, the general headquarter of the old Whig aristocracy, not being ready to open its doors with a tide of young people, preliminary meetings were held at Ellice to develop a club much broader which would be the promoter of social relations between reformers of the United Kingdom. When a liberal member of the Parliament changed edge to join or work with another party, one awaited from him that he resigns of the club. The club does not require today any more a particular political point of view of its members, and is purely social.

Until the decline of the Liberal party, it was required for the liberal members of the Parliament to be members of Reform Club, which constituted almost the general headquarter of another party, although the National Liberal Club, set up under the presidency of William Ewart Gladstone, was established in 1882, was intended to be more inclusive, and was more adapted for the figures and liberal activists of the country.

The building, like its neighbor the Travellers Club, (number 106), was drawn by Sir Charles Barry and opened in 1841. The new club was a palate whose plans were based on those of the Palais Farnèse of Rome. Reform was one of the first clubs to have rooms to sleep, its library contained 50.000 books, mainly books of history and biographies.

With the decline of the Liberal party at the semi-20th century, the club collected more and more its members among the civils servant of the ministry for finances whereas its neighbor, the Travellers Club, was assimilated to official Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

One finds Reform Club in the novel of Jules Verne the Round the world tour in eighty days : the hero, Phileas Fogg, are a member of Reform Club which leaves to make the round the world tour on a bet with other members, starting and finishing with the club.

Michael Palin, imitating her imaginary predecessor, began and completed its own round the world tour in 80 days in Reform Club.

Among the members one counted:

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