In the latest post for the Georgian Lords, Charles Littleton considers a forgotten club known as ‘the House of Lords’, which met in Holborn in the 1780s and assumed many of the characteristics of the chamber which inspired it.
On Wednesday, 15 January 1783, the Public Advertiser ran a column describing a now little-known social club, named simply ‘The House of Lords’. The account of the club’s rules suggests that its members had an informed knowledge of the upper chamber and they were impressively accurate in their attempts to mimic the House’s personnel and procedures:
The President of this Association is formally styled Lord Chancellor. He wears a legal wig and robes and has a mace placed on the table before him, which denotes the sitting of the House, and consequent necessity of observing order. The principal business of this high Officer is to regulate debate, and administer the engagement which is entered into by new-made Peers; that is, to obey the Chancellor, to conform to the rules and orders of the House, and to act in a polite and friendly manner towards the Members.
If he fails so to do, an impeachment is formed against him, a Lord High Steward is appointed, the Peers are summoned, he takes his trial, and is expelled, fined, censured, or acquitted, as his case may demand, after which the presiding Officer breaks his wand, and the proceedings end. To preserve order, and assist the Chancellor, there are likewise a Clerk of the Crown, and a Serjeant at Arms.
The procedures for inducting new members tried to echo the House’s methods as far as possible, even employing one of the relevant officers:
One of the Nobles proposes the intended member as an Esquire, desirous and worthy of a Title and Seat among the Lords. This Motion being duly seconded, and carried by a majority of voices, the new Peer is introduced by the Usher of the Black Rod, and certain Lords commissioned for the purpose. He bows thrice respectfully in his way to the Chair, and then takes the promise before spoken of…
The members also followed the House of Lords in adopting titles for themselves:
Here, as well as at Westminster, dignity is not proportioned to merit, but the titles to the sum given for admission. A Baron pays one, a Viscount two, an Earl three, a Marquis four, and a Duke five shillings for his honours.
An archbishopric, incidentally, cost the same as a dukedom.
Members also followed their noble namesakes in procedures in the debates:
on the most popular religious, political, moral, or scientifical subjects. No Lord speaks twice on the same topic, but him who opened the controversy. When the arguments are closed, the House is adjourned, the Peers lay down their dignities, and conviviality ensues.
The club’s meetings convened in the heart of legal London. It had first met ‘in the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane‘ when it was established in 1779 or 1780. By January 1783 its venue had moved to a tavern, ‘The Yorkshire Grey’, near the Rolls Building in Holborn. With its location and emphasis on debate, the club would have appealed principally to legal professionals.
The club allowed attorneys, solicitors, and their clerks to assume the identities of the Lords’ great legal figures. Some adopted the titles of lord chancellors past, present, and even future: Edward Thurlow, Baron Thurlow; his predecessor Charles Pratt, Baron (later Earl) Camden; and his successor Alexander Wedderburn, Baron Loughborough (in January 1783 lord chief justice of common pleas). Another lawyer adopted the identity of the lord chief justice of king’s bench William Murray, earl of Mansfield. Others became the previous solicitors-general Sir Fletcher Norton, Baron Grantley, and John Dunning, Baron Ashburton.
There are hints of a political leaning to the society, with its emphasis on free discussion of popular issues. The article appeared in January 1783, at the beginning of a year which saw no fewer than three administrations, and many of the titles chosen by the members had obvious political resonances. Both Grantley and Ashburton had been made peers only the previous year, after long and often controversial careers in the Commons. Grantley had been Speaker between 1770-80, while Ashburton was a firebrand Whig infamous for his 1780 motion against the influence of the Crown.
One participant described as ‘of the Association‘ assumed the name Baron Amherst, the title given in 1776 to Jeffrey Amherst, from 1778 commander-in-chief of the British Armed Forces. The newspaper sought to emphasize the incongruity of a member of the Westminster Association, advocating parliamentary reform, identifying himself with the commander-in-chief overseeing the disastrous American war. In this alternative Lords one might also ‘find a fishmonger at the head of the Admiralty‘, a reference to Augustus Keppel, Viscount Keppel, who served as first Lord of the Admiralty in the Whig administrations of 1782-83, until he resigned only days after the item appeared, on the grounds of opposition to the peace terms with America.
The article made it clear that, ‘as these gentlemen are not the mere echoes of their principals’, they could take positions at odds with their namesakes. Thus, the club’s ‘Lord Sandwich may be heard pleading the cause of religion and morality‘: John Montagu, 4th earl of Sandwich, being an infamous libertine. Meanwhile, the self-styled Archbishop of York could be heard defending polygamy. Among the many lawyers in the club, ‘Lord Mansfield will be caught asserting the Liberty of the Press and of the People‘, while he who had taken on the persona of Lord Camden ‘is justifying the American War’. The Public Advertiser‘s ironic comment about Mansfield supporting press freedoms was barbed. After it had published the ‘Letters of Junius’ in 1769-70, the editor of the Public Advertiser had been tried for seditious libel before Mansfield, who sought to convince the jury to convict him.
The article concluded approvingly: Thus do a number of thinking Characters associate and amuse themselves, mixing rational conversation with conviviality, and instruction with entertainment. As it embarked on the politically turbulent year 1783, would the Public Advertiser have described the genuine House of Lords in the same positive terms?
CGDL
Further reading:
Public Advertiser, Wednesday 15 Jan. 1783 (Issue 15173)
Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 1580-1800: The Origins of an Associational World (2000)
John Cannon, The Fox-North Coalition: Crisis of the Constitution, 1782-4 (1969)
