The Oxford and Cambridge University Club
Previous history of part of this site is described on
page 378
'At a numerous Meeting of Members of the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, held at the
British Coffee House, Cockspur Street, on Monday 17 May 1830' it was resolved 'That a Club
be formed consisting of Members of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge to be called "The
Oxford and Cambridge University Club".' At
this meeting it was also decided that the club should
consist of six hundred members, three hundred
from each University, and that the affairs of the
club should be entrusted to a committee of
management, which was empowered to take a
house for a term of up to seven years. The annual
subscription was fixed at five guineas, with a tenguinea entrance fee for original members. To
members elected later the entrance fee was to be
fifteen guineas. (ref. 201)
This inaugural meeting was presided over by
Viscount Palmerston, M.P. Members of the first
committee of management included Colonel (later
General Sir) Frederick Trench, who was a
member of Parliament for most of the period
1807–47 and represented Cambridge 1819–32,
and who interested himself in several schemes for
the improvement of the metropolis; and the Rev.
Hugh James Rose, later Professor of Divinity at
Durham University and Principal of King's College, London. One of the club's trustees was Sir
Robert Inglis (1786–1855), Tory M.P. for most
of the period 1824–54, who in 1829 defeated Sir
Robert Peel in the famous contest for the representation of Oxford University. (ref. 202)
For a few weeks the club appears to have hired a
room at the British Coffee House. At a general
meeting held there on 17 June the rules of the
club were approved, and the committee reported
that 467 original members had been elected, and
that the number of candidates had considerably
exceeded 600. (ref. 203)
On 16 June the committee agreed to take Sir
John Beckett's house at the northern corner of
King Street and St. James's Square for eighteen
months at a rent of £1200. (ref. 204) This house was
opened for members' use on 5 July 1830, and the
club remained there until the end of 1837.
No attempt to find a permanent home for the
club appears to have been made until 1834. In
March of that year the committee declined an
offer from Sir John Beckett to sell the freehold of
his house in St. James's Square. (ref. 205) In April
correspondence began with the Commissioners of
Woods and Forests about the possibility of finding
a building site on the south side of Pall Mall, (ref. 206)
but the only site at first available was considered
too small. As a result of this setback, negotiations that had been proceeding for an amalgamation with the United University Club were
abandoned. (ref. 207) A second site was declined for the
same reason as before, but on 8 May 1835 the
Commissioners offered to grant the club a ninetynine-year lease of ground backing on to Marlborough House with a frontage of some ninetyfour feet to Pall Mall. (ref. 208) Sir Robert Smirke, who
had been consulted by the club about the two
earlier offers, was instructed to ascertain from the
Commissioners whether some alteration might be
made to the wall of the courtyard of Marlborough House so as 'to admit of a better back
light', but the Commissioners refused to make any
concession. (fn. 209) On 1 June Smirke reported to the
committee that he considered the site was eligible
for the erection of a house for the accommodation
of up to 1200 members, and the committee therefore decided to accept the Commissioners' offer.
Smirke was instructed to prepare plans and
estimates. (ref. 210)
At the annual general meeting of the club held
on 16 June 1835 the committee was authorized
to take the site in Pall Mall and to spend up to
£27,000 on the erection of a new house there.
The approval of Smirke's plans and the superintendence of the building of the new house were
the work of the committee: no special building
committee was established. (fn. 211) Members of the
committee during the years 1835–8 included Sir
Robert Inglis; Russell Gurney (1804–78), a
young barrister who later became Recorder of
London; Charles Neate (1806–79), economist
and political writer, a Fellow of Oriel and M.P.
for the City of Oxford 1863–8; the Rev. Joseph
Blakesley (1808–85), Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge, and later Dean of Lincoln; and
Edward Twisleton (1809–74), Fellow of Balliol,
who later served on many government commissions. W. E. Gladstone was also a member of the
committee, but did not attend many of its meetings. (ref. 212)
In the club archives are Smirke's four proposed
plans for the new house, floor by floor. Three of
them are signed and dated 2 July 1835. Only a
few minor differences are discernible between
these plans and the finished building. The committee seemed doubtful about Smirke's proposed
design for the front elevation, and even asked
'whether he could not furnish the Committee
with a different elevation of another Style of
Architecture in compliance with the wishes of
several Members of the Club'; but on learning
that this would involve some alteration in the plan
of the rooms, the committee resolved, on 30 July,
'That the original plan be now finally decided
upon'. (fn. 213)
Tenders from six contractors were opened on
28 October. The lowest was from Messrs.
Grissell and Peto of York Road, Lambeth, for
£24,130, and this was accepted. (ref. 214) The disposal
of the old buildings on the site was completed
shortly afterwards and the ground was handed
over to Smirke on 5 November 1835. (ref. 206)
The building of the club-house took twenty-six months. The minutes of the committee record
very little of note as to the progress of the works.
At the annual general meeting of May 1836 it
was resolved that a smoking-room 'should be
fitted up in the New Club House'. At the request of fifty members a special general meeting
was held shortly afterwards to reconsider this
motion, but it was re-affirmed by 91 votes to 76. (ref. 215)
The only other matter with which either the
committee or the members at large appear to have
concerned themselves was the choice of wood for
the library bookcases and marble for the chimneypieces. (ref. 216)
The new club-house was opened to members
on 5 February 1838. (ref. 217) The contractor's final
account was £19 10s. under his original tender of
£24,130; but 'Extra Works' ordered by the committee during the progress of the building cost a
further £977 16s. Sir Robert Smirke was paid
£1254—five per cent of the cost. (ref. 218)
The design of the club-house has generally been
attributed jointly to Sir Robert Smirke and his
younger brother Sydney Smirke. (ref. 219) Yet all
negotiations with the committee of the club were
carried out by Sir Robert; and although 'Mr.
Sidney Smirke' is recorded in the minutes as having
once 'waited on' the secretary it was 'by the desire
of Sir Robert Smirke, who is confined to his room
by illness, to state that the Tenders . . . were necessarily delayed'. (ref. 220) The club records—plans,
minutes, accounts—give no suggestion that two
architects were involved. After the completion of
the building, however, both brothers were elected
honorary members of the club. (ref. 221) In 1857 and
1863, long after his brother had retired, Sydney
Smirke was commissioned by the club to carry out
minor alterations. (ref. 222)
Figure 66:
Oxford and Cambridge University Club, Pall Mall, plans of 1838.
Re-drawn from The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal
In 1907 the strangers' dining-room (formerly
the house dining-room) was elaborately enlarged, (ref. 223) and major alterations (described below)
were made to the staircase compartment, the
architect being (Sir) Reginald Blomfield. (ref. 224) In
1912 a second bedroom storey was added, the
dormer windows of which rise above the balustrade on the Pall Mall front. Blomfield was again
the architect. (ref. 225)
In 1952 a Crown lease was taken of the next-door house on the east side, No. 77 Pall Mall, to
accommodate lady associates.
Architectural description
This club-house occupies an irregular site, open
only on the north, with a frontage of 94 feet to
Pall Mall, the depth of the building ranging from
70 feet on the west side to 96 feet on the east.
Nevertheless, the building is excellently planned,
with a convenient arrangement of spacious and
well-lit rooms (fig. 66).
When first built, the front of the club-house
(Plate 104a) was observed to have 'an air of
monumental grandeur, admirably suited to a building, which, from its connexion with the Universities, awakens attention to those proud features of
our Constitution'. (ref. 226) The design is certainly bold
in scale by London standards; the style (Graeco-Roman and Italianate) and the material (painted
stucco) relate it to the two great club-houses in
Waterloo Place; and a note of Regency elegance
is sustained by the use of slender glazing-bars in
the sash windows.
There are two lofty storeys, the lower arcaded
and the upper divided by piers. Each storey has
seven bays, the centre being emphasized by the
portico and the slightly projecting wide bay
above. A rusticated plinth contains the basement-mezzanine windows. The area railing, a
scale-patterned grille of cast iron, was originally
continuous on each side of the portico, but is now
broken by stone pedestals bearing cast-iron standards for gas-flambeaux. The ground storey is
stuccoed to represent an arcaded face of smooth
stonework, rusticated with chamfered horizontal
and vertical joints. Its wide piers are finished with
Doric imposts from which spring the round arches
of the tall and relatively narrow window-openings,
three on each side of the portico. The portico is a
dominating feature of the front. Four Corinthian
columns in line, with plain shafts of stone, rising
in widely spaced pairs from stone pedestals, carry
a stucco entablature with bay-garland frieze and
dentilled cornice. Above each of the four
columns the frieze and dentil-band give place to a
cartouche emblazoned with the arms of either
University. The entablature is continued across
each flanking face of the front, but the crowning
members of the cornice project to form a balcony,
resting on elaborately enriched console-trusses of
cast iron which break the architrave and frieze.
The balcony has a front of cast-iron railings by
C. F. Bielefield, (ref. 227) with panels of rich scrollwork,
between pedestals of stucco. Wide piers, coursed
with chamfered joints, divide the upper storey into
seven bays, each containing a tall rectangular window within a Doric surround, and an oblong
panel above. In the emphasized middle bay, the
window surround is fully articulated: complete
pilasters on the face and reveals support an
entablature having a frieze decorated with formal
bell-flowers. In the three narrow bays on each
side, the window surrounds are recessed and halfpilasters are employed. The panels over the windows contain bas-reliefs, modelled in Roman
cement by William Grinsell Nicholl and now
painted in the Wedgwood manner. They are
from designs by Robert Smirke, R.A., the father
of the architect, and they 'illustrate those exalted
labours of the mind which it is the peculiar
province of the Universities to foster and
promote'. (ref. 228) From east to west the subjects
are:
1 Homer, inspired by Athene, declaiming
his epic to young and old.
2 Bacon recommending his philosophy to
his auditors.
3 Shakespeare attended by Tragedy and
Comedy.
centre Apollo and Athene, with the nine Muses
and a fountain-nymph personifying inspiration.
5 Milton dictating his verses to his daughter,
inspired by a superior agency seen hovering over him.
6 Newton explaining his system.
7 Virgil reciting his Georgics to a group of
husbandmen. (ref. 229)
The crowning entablature is scaled to the full
height of the front and comprises a moulded architrave, a frieze of anthemion ornament, and a cornice with dentils and enriched scroll-modillions.
The front retains its original balustrade, with
solid dies over the piers; but the roof with its eight
dormers is the work of Blomfield.
The portico, central in the Pall Mall front,
opens to a hall which, having its floor lower than
the main ground-floor level, is of imposing height
(Plate 104b). Two Doric pillars rising from projecting pedestals on either side make a division
into two compartments, the larger, the entrance
hall proper, being more or less square. Here,
above the pedestal dado, coursed with chamfered
joints, the plainness of walls and ceiling is relieved
by a simple cornice defined by the gilding of its
outer mouldings. At the south end, between the
projecting pedestals, a wide flight of thirteen steps
rises to a landing in front of the doorway to the
staircase compartment. The door, of two leaves,
is framed by a doorcase with a moulded architrave,
plain jambs, and a cornice resting on enriched
scroll-consoles. Engaged Doric pillars on either
side of the doorway pair with the two already
noticed, to carry a rectangle of cross-beams
supporting the ceiling, in the centre of which is a
large rectangular coffer. Narrow gilt mouldings
emphasize the rectangles, and the capitals of the
four Doric pillars are gilt.
The staircase compartment, two storeys high,
is spacious and well lit (Plate 105). The staircase
itself, of simple dog-leg form, is wide and generous,
rising to a half-landing and returning to end at the
first-floor landing. The massive balustrade comprises an architrave string, its top fascia ornamented with a wave-scroll which is repeated as a
string round the walls of the compartment, and a
cornice-handrail supported by stout balusters with
solid dies at two intervals in the upper flight.
Pedestals, with panelled dies and base-blocks for
candelabra above the capping, terminate the
balustrade of each flight. In 1907 (Sir) Reginald
Blomfield lined the walls up to the first-floor level
with panels of yellow Skyros marble in statuary
framing, and replaced Smirke's three windowlights in the south end wall by a large Doric
Venetian window. The college shields from the
original window-glass were re-set in the corridor
windows. (ref. 224)
(fn. a) The deep frieze of oblong panels in
bay-garland mouldings is due to the same architect, but the ceiling is original. (ref. 230) It is divided
into four equal bays by cross-beams resting on
scrolled brackets, the soffits of the cross-beams
enriched with encircled quatrefoils. Each bay is
modelled with three recessed panels—wide between narrow—the middle one being ornamented
with a formal foliage-boss within a wreath. The
ground-floor level of the staircase compartment
forms a vestibule to the principal rooms of that
floor. A west doorway immediately at the foot of
the stairs opens to the coffee-room: an east doorframe gives entrance to a short corridor leading
north to the morning-room and south to the former strangers' dining-room, once enlarged by
Blomfield but now split up.
The handsome, well-proportioned principal
rooms are decorated by a spare but effective use of
standard Grecian mouldings and ornament in cast
plaster. During the latter half of the nineteenth
century, apparently, 'Pompeian decorations on a
ground of coffee and stone colour' had been
introduced; but these were swept away by
Blomfield in 1907, when a contemporary wrote,
'. . . the whole effect of the new interior
gives an amazing accession of air, of cheerfulness, and of well-proportioned space and
colour'. (ref. 224)
In the morning-room (Plate 106a), which is
almost square, the walls are divided, above the
pedestal-dado, into large flush panels with enriched
moulded frames, and there is a plain narrow frieze
below the delicate cornice of acanthus leaves. A
border of flower-heads and acanthus sheaves
surrounds the ceiling, which is plain but for the
central rose. This is composed of a circular grille,
combining the functions of a ventilator and a
chandelier-boss, decorated with large acanthus
buds and surrounded with anthemion ornament.
The chimneypieces, central in the south and east
walls respectively, are of dark marble with
diagonally projecting console-jambs supporting
the cornice-shelf. Above, large matching heavy
gilt frames contain, on the south a mirror, on the
east a portrait of the first Duke of Wellington.
The three arch-headed windows in the north wall
have panelled shutters and soffits, and moulded
architraves.
The fine coffee-room (Plate 106b) extends for
the full depth of the building on the west side. Its
length, 66 feet, is exactly twice its breadth. Each
long wall is divided into three bays by engaged
pillars having painted shafts and gilded anthemion-ornamented caps, with enriched console-trusses
supporting cross-beams which divide the flat
ceiling. Except that the large wall-panels are
framed in cross-banded reeded mouldings (probably
Blomfield's work) the general treatment of the
room is on similar lines to that of the morning-room. Matching chandeliers carried in the three
ceiling-roses are probably those referred to in the
club accounts for 1867. The three windows
in each end wall, round-arched in the north wall
and straight-headed in the south, are finished in the
same manner as those in the morning-room.
On the first floor the arrangement of the rooms
is reversed, there being two (the north and south
libraries) over the coffee-room, and one large
room (the smoking-room) over the morning-room
and entrance hall. The north and south libraries
are related rooms, each almost square in plan
(Plate 107b). For about two-thirds of their height
the walls are lined with bookshelves designed in
Russian birch on architectural lines to embrace the
doors and fireplaces. The lower section forms a
projecting dado for folios, with a moulded skirting
and a rail ornamented with a bead-and-reel moulding. The upper part is finished with a combination
of architrave and cornice, and the vertical divisions
are formed by narrow pilasters with panelled
shafts and Doric caps. The doorway between the
two rooms, and all three fireplace recesses, are
framed by larger pilasters of the same character,
supporting projecting lengths of the entablaturecapping which are developed, in the south library
only, into angular pediments. The north library
has a chimneypiece of figured white marble, with
panelled jambs and enriched consoles supporting
the cornice-shelf. The two south library chimneypieces, east and west, are somewhat simpler in
design, but, like the one in the north library, they
contain fine grates of iron and brass and are
surmounted by large plate mirrors, secretly fixed
and filling the upper part of the recess. The upper
wall face in each library is quite plain and finished
with a simple entablature, the sole ornament of
which is a narrow band of acanthus leaves. A
plain cove rises to the bay-garland band and gilt
moulding bordering the flat ceiling, which is plain
but for a central boss-ventilator of similar design
to that in the morning-room, already described.
The large smoking-room (originally called the
evening-room or drawing-room) is perhaps the
most handsome of the club's apartments (Plate
107a). Extending over both morning-room and
entrance hall, it is lit by four of the windows on
the north front. The westernmost of these, the
window above the portico, diverges from the
equal spacing of the other three; but Doric piers
placed on the north and south sides of the room, at
a position between the portico window and the
others, restore the fenestral pattern without
detracting from the room's impressive length. The
piers have marbled shafts and enriched caps, and
carry a deep cross-beam, the soffit of which is enriched with a bold guilloche pattern. Raised and
enriched mouldings divide the walls into large
panels with wide margins, and a rich finish is given
by the anthemion frieze and dentilled cornice.
These latter features, and the moulded architrave,
are returned by the Doric piers and their crossbeam, so that the ceiling is in two distinct compartments. The major compartment is divided
into square panels by guilloche-enriched ribs,
paired laterally, and each panel contains a recessed
and moulded square coffer with a formalized
flower-boss. The decoration of the smaller
ceiling-compartment is similar but not quite so
elaborate. There are two chimneypieces, one in
the south wall opposite the middle one of the three
easterly windows, and one in the centre of the west
wall. Both are of white marble, with a simple
architrave flanked by panelled pilaster-jambs,
diagonally placed, with enriched caps and armorial
cartouches on the frieze-blocks below the corniceshelf. Over each is a tall mirror plate in a gilt
frame, reeded and cross-banded, with a plain
frieze and an enriched cornice. The doorcase of
the main entrance from the grand staircase is
composed of an architrave flanked by panelled
pilaster-strips with elaborate consoles supporting
an anthemion-enriched cornice above a baygarland frieze. A similar doorcase at the east end
is a trompe I'œil feature framing a large mirror
plate. The main entrance is no longer used, access
now being only from the east corridor. There was
originally a door to the north library, but it has
been covered up. The dado-high bookcases, designed for the room, are interesting examples of
transitional Regency-Victorian furniture.