Room 9: The Kit-cat Club
National Gallery London
‘The best club that ever met’
Sir John Vanbrugh, Kit-cat Club member, 1725
During my first summer of Oxford study, I studied Eighteenth Century Literature & the Arts with brilliant professor Peter McCullough. As a part of our process, we visited manor houses in the Cotswolds and also London to spend time in the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, among other landmarks.
In the National Gallery’s Room Nine, we stopped in front of oil portraits by Sir Geoffrey Kneller as Peter offered animated commentary. The portraits were members of the Kit-Cat Club, founded in the late 1690s on Shire Lane1 in London, when Jacob Tonson, a bookseller of lowly birth, forged a partnership with the pie-maker Christopher (Kit) Cat. What began as an eccentric publishing rights deal – Tonson paying to feed hungry young writers in trade for first option on their works— developed into a unique gathering of intellects and interests, The Kit-Cat Club, named after Kit’s pies, (recipe below) was one of the earliest and most influential London gentlemen’s dining clubs. With members drawn exclusively from the Whig2 faction, yet with foundations in the literary world, it became a hub of patronage along lines of intellectual friendship, an informal venue of political opposition.
The Whigs opposed absolute monarchy, supporting constitutional monarchism with a parliamentary system. Whigs supported transferring power to the people.
They played a central role in the deposition of James II, Mary of Modena’s husband.
Famed artist Sir Godfrey Kneller was a member. His 48 portraits of club members were painted over more than twenty years and form the most complete known members list of the club.
Six years after Peter’s course, I returned to The National Gallery.
“I entered with vivid memories of my last visit with Peter and the five others from my tutorial. I made a bee-line through a wide, rounded archway to Room 9. Golden oak floors, herringboned-patterned, luscious cream ceiling trim, stately gilt-framed portraits on muted caramel walls. Yes, in Room 9, the members of the Kit-cat Club still gathered.”
Rain Dodging 121-122.
I stayed there for a long while, thinking about how far I had come, literally and figuratively.
Here’s to you Sir Godfrey Keller.
1 Shire Lane, parallel with Bell Yard, is now covered by the Royal Courts of Justice.
2Short for’whigamores,’ likely originating from the Scots for “mare drivers,”— “whig-a-mare” – a term for driving a horse forward .https://www.thefreedictionary.com/whiggamore
