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  White’s club (37 St James’s Street) was established in 1697 and remains the oldest club in London. Originally opened by Francis White in 1693 as White’s Chocolate House, it occupied several locations in St James’s Street, including the site of what is now Boodle’s. From its inception, White’s attracted the cream of England’s upper class although neither wit, wealth nor birth guaranteed one’s election to the club. Members were elected by ballot in which at least twelve clubmen had to participate by dropping either a white ball, signifying approval, or a black ball to indicate exclusion. A single black ball was all it took to deny a man admission to the club. White’s flourished during the Regency and was renowned as the ‘home of the dandies’ with a dandy set led by Beau Brummell, elected a member in 1789. White’s was also, for a time, a Tory stronghold—although men of both parties continued as members—but after 1832 it became apolitical. As Peregrine Taverner in Regency Buck was aware, membership of White’s bestowed a certain distinction on a man and was an honour coveted by many among the upper class which made it a great relief when his guardian, the Earl of Worth, agreed to have him made a member.

  Beau Brummell was one of the most famous members of White’s club where he made the bow-window his particular preserve.

  Established in 1762, Boodle’s (28 St James’s Street) had originally been started as a club at 50 Pall Mall by William Almack, the founder of Almack’s. Originally known as the ‘Savoir Vivre’ it was eventually named after the manager Edward Boodle. In later years Boodle’s moved into a fine Adam-style building in St James’s Street on the original site of White’s club. Although it was a political club at its inception, Boodle’s shed its political inclinations early on and its members were content to gamble, partake of fine food, sit in the bow-window and enjoy the club’s calm and uneventful environment. Boodle’s was one of the clubs to which Lord Lionel Ware went to hear the gossip about his son and nephew in The Foundling.

  Established in 1764, just two years after Boodle’s, Brooks’s (60 St James’s Street) was another of William Almack’s early clubs and was located for a time at 49 Pall Mall, next to the original Boodle’s site. Initially, it was a club inside a tavern until the members agreed to employ William Brooks to manage it and the club soon took on his name. Like White’s, Brooks’s was well known for its high-stakes gambling and during the Regency many fortunes exchanged hands at the tables in Brooks’s Great Subscription Room. Originally a young man’s club, and a meeting place for men of no particular political persuasion, by the end of the eighteenth century Brooks’s had become a noted Whig stronghold with the great orator and hedonist, Charles James Fox, as its leader. Fox’s death in 1806 did nothing to diminish the club’s Whiggish bent and many of the club’s noble members sat on the Opposition benches in the House of Lords although some, such as Adam Deveril of A Civil Contract, had Tory leanings but remained members of Brooks’s out of respect for their family tradition.

  Watier’s (81 Piccadilly) appears to have been established originally as a venue for harmonic meetings but, in 1807, the Prince of Wales invited his chef Watier to start a club which would provide a cuisine superior to the more mundane fare offered at White’s or Brooks’s. Watier took over the rooms at 81 Piccadilly and offered such magnificent food that the club quickly became the talk of the town, drawing to it all the well-born young bucks and bloods of the day who initiated the high play and wild gambling for which Watier’s soon became notorious. Known as the ‘Great-Go’ and called by Byron ‘the Dandy Club’, Watier’s attracted members who were mostly men of fashion addicted to gaming and ready to throw a fortune away on a brief moment of chance. In April Lady, Watier’s was a favourite haunt of Nell Cardross’s pleasure-loving brother, Dysart, who enjoyed the fine dinners and high play. Beau Brummell was designated the club’s perpetual president until 1816 when his debts forced him into exile in France, and by 1819 most of the club’s leading members had sustained such enormous gambling losses that Watier’s closed its doors for ever.

  The clubs made it easy for any well-bred man—whether married or single—to spend time away from home, and wives, sisters, mothers and daughters frequently accepted men’s need to escape from their female relatives from time to time. It was tacitly understood by many women that, in order to retain any respect for their menfolk, it was essential either to feign ignorance or to refrain from discovering exactly what men did do when they had escaped. Alcohol was an accepted part of Regency life and all classes imbibed huge quantities of wine, spirits and ale, the latter often drunk at breakfast. Among the upper class Madeira, sherry and brandy were the drinks of preference throughout the day and into the evening, while port was generally reserved as an after-dinner drink. Sir Richard Wyndham in The Corinthian imbibed a large enough quantity of brandy to become quite drunk the night before his planned proposal to the aristocratic Melissa Brandon, and on leaving the club felt compelled to go for a long walk to clear his head. Drunkenness was common, particularly among young men for whom it was deemed an acceptable condition. Enthusiastic youths bent on having fun, and possibly in London for the first time, could think of no occupation more desirable than to throw off a third of daffy (gin) at Limmer’s Hotel in the company of the fancy, or to drink beer while mixing with the sporting set at Cribb’s Parlour. To engage in a revel-rout or wine party and spend the night carousing, engaging in pranks (such as boxing the watch) and finishing the night in the watch-house was, for some, the height of ambition.

  Other less salubrious venues popular with men during the Regency were the Daffy Club (a pugilistic setting), the Cock-pit Royal in Birdcage Walk, the Royal Saloon in Piccadilly, the Peerless Pool, and the Westminster Pit where men of all classes gathered to watch dog-fights. Boxing enthusiasts such as Sir Waldo Hawkridge in The Nonesuch or the Marquis of Alverstoke in Frederica could take themselves off to Gentleman John Jackson’s Boxing Saloon at 13 Bond Street where athletic men of fashion (known as Corinthians) could take lessons from the great man himself. Devotees of pugilism generally revered Jackson and eagerly attended his sparring matches at the Fives Court in London or the illicit bouts between the pets of the fancy which were usually set up within a couple of hours’ drive of the city.

  Even those entertainments which men and women could enjoy together, such as the theatre, music and the opera, had an exclusively masculine side to them. Strolling in Fops’ Alley (the walkway between the pit and the stalls) at the opera, or lingering to admire the prostitutes known as Cyprians in the saloon at Covent Garden, was considered famous sport, while flirting with opera dancers or ogling the ladies in the audience were activities to which a man’s female companions were expected to turn a blind eye as Hero quickly learned in Friday’s Child. In addition to the theatre, concerts, opera, soirées, balls, parties and assemblies which were the usual evening activities for the ton, Regency men would often seek out the grog shops and brothels of Tothill Fields where they could drink quantities of cheaply distilled spirits and become blind drunk for just a few pence, or have their way with a prostitute for not much more. All the pleasures of the flesh were available to a man with money, and the elasticity of upper-class morality during the Regency meant that there was little that he could not do. For some, however—such as the Honourable Beverley Brandon in The Corinthian—years of debauched and dissipated living left them both financially and morally bankrupt.

  THE BOW-WINDOW SET

  So famous was the bow-window at White’s club that Sophy Stanton-Lacy in The Grand Sophy dared to drive down the exclusive male precinct of St James’s Street in her high-perch phaeton in the hopes of seeing it. The bow-window came into existence in the first year of the Regency. For the club, 1811 was a year of change with the entrance fee doubled from ten to twenty guineas and subscriptions raised to eleven guineas. It was at this time, too, that the original front entrance was moved from the centre of the front façade to its present position nearer to the southern end of the building, with a new entrance created by converting the second windo