Kit-Cat Club
The Kit-Cat Club (sometimes Kit Kat Club) was an early 18th-century English club in London with strong political and literary associations. [1] Members of the club were committed Whigs. They met at the Trumpet tavern in London and at Water Oakley in the Berkshire countryside.
The first meetings were held at a tavern in Shire Lane (parallel with Bell Yard and now covered by the Royal Courts of Justice) run by an innkeeper called Christopher Catt. He gave his name to the mutton pies known as "Kit Cats" from which the name of the club is derived.
The club later moved to the Fountain Tavern on The Strand (now the site of Simpson's-in-the-Strand), and latterly into a room specially built for the purpose at Barn Elms, the home of the secretary Jacob Tonson.[2] In summer, the club met at the Upper Flask, Hampstead Heath.
Origins
The origin of the name "Kit-Cat Club" is unclear. In 1705 Thomas Hearne wrote: "The Kit Cat Club got its name from Christopher Catling. [Note, a Pudding Pye man.]" Other sources give his surname as Catt (or some variant such as Cat or Katt): John Timbs ("Club Life of London"), Ophelia Field ("The Kit-Kat Club"), John Macky ("A Journey Through England").
A nickname for Christopher is "Kit". Christopher Catt was the keeper of a pie-house in Shire Lane, by Temple Bar, where the club originally met. His famous mutton pies ("Kit-Kats") were named after him, and formed a standing dish at meetings of the club; the pie is thus itself sometimes regarded (e.g., by Addison in the Spectator) as the origin of the club's name.
It is possible that the club began at the end of the 17th century as the so-called "Order of the Toast". Indeed, a famous characteristic of the Kit-Kat was its toasting glasses, used for drinking the health of the reigning beauties of the day; verses in their praise were engraved on the glasses. If so, one can place the date before 1699, when
Whence deathless Kit-Kat took his name
Few critics can unriddle
Some say from pastrycook it came
And some from Cat and Fiddle.
From no trim beaus its name it boasts
Grey statesmen or green wits
But from the pell-mell pack of toasts
Of old Cats and young Kits.[3]
Possible earlier objectives
John Vanbrugh's modern biographer
Prominent members
Amongst the club's membership were writers such as
Other notables included
Toasts
The toasts of the Kit-Kat Club were famous at the time, and were drunk to the honour of a reigning beauty, or lady to whom the Club wished to do particular honour. We know by name some of those who were toasted:
Notable members
- Joseph Addison
- James Berkeley, 3rd Earl of Berkeley
- Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington
- Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham
- William Congreve
- Charles Dartiquenave
- William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire
- Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset
- Samuel Garth
- Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton
- Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull
- Godfrey Kneller
- Charles Montagu, 1st Duke of Manchester
- Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun of Okehampton
- Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle
- Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond
- Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset
- Count of St. Germain
- James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope
- Abraham Stanyan
- Richard Steele
- Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland
- John Vanbrugh
- Robert Walpole
- Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton
See also
References and sources
- References
- ^ Timbs, John (1872), "The Kit-Kat Club", Clubs and club life in London, London: John Camden Hotten, pp. 47–53
- ISBN 0-543-96787-5
- ^ a b The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Containing Additional Letters &c. (1727), p. 386. Revised, Edinburgh: Walter Scott (1814)
- ^ "The Kit-cat Club portraits: paintings by Sir Godfrey Kneller, circa 1697-1721". Retrieved 10 January 2022.
- ^ a b Bradley, Rose (1912). The English Housewife in the Seventeenth & Eighteenth Centuries. London: E. Arnold. p. 205.
- Sources
- Downes, Kerry (1987). Sir John Vanbrugh: A Biography. London: Sidgwick and Jackson.
- Hearne, Thomas (1705) Ductor historicus; or a short system of universal history 1698—ed. 2, augmented and improv'd 1704–05 (1714)
- Field, Ophelia (2008). The Kit-Kat Club, London: Harper.
- Swift, Jonathan D.D. (1727) The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Containing Additional Letters &c. Volume XIII reprinted, Edinburgh: Walter Scott (1814)
External links
- Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. .