The Kit-Cat Club (sometimes Kit Kat Club ) was an early 18th-century English club in London with strong political and literary associations. Members of the club were committed Whigs . They met at the Trumpet Tavern in London and at Water Oakley in the Berkshire countryside.
31-585: 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
62-589: A further £70,000 and with decoration and furnishing the total cost for the building came to under £1 million. The building was extended to the designs of Sir Henry Tanner to create the West Green building completed in 1912. The Queen's Building followed in 1968 and the Thomas More Courts were completed in January 1990. The building was used as a " Nightingale Court " for criminal trials during
93-577: A glass goblet. Royal Courts of Justice The Royal Courts of Justice , commonly called the Law Courts , is a court building in Westminster which houses the High Court and Court of Appeal of England and Wales . The High Court also sits on circuit and in other major cities. Designed by George Edmund Street , who died before it was completed, it is a large grey stone edifice in
124-495: A large practice. He was a zealous Whig , the friend of Addison and, though of different political views, of Pope . He ended his career as physician to George I , who knighted him in 1714. The politician John Garth was a nephew of Samuel Garth. In 1699 Samuel Garth was called to give evidence in what became known as the Sarah Stout Affair . Spencer Cowper , a lawyer and member of a prominent Hertfordshire family,
155-616: A room specially built for the purpose at Barn Elms , the home of the secretary Jacob Tonson . In summer, the club met at the Upper Flask , Hampstead Heath . 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
186-442: A scaly alligator hung. In this place drugs in musty heaps decay'd, In that dried bladders and false teeth were laid. An inner room receives the num'rous shoals Of such as pay to be reputed fools; Globes stand by globes, volumes on volumes lie, And planetary schemes amuse the eye. The sage in velvet chair here lolls at ease, To promise future health for present fees; Then, as from tripod, solemn shams reveals, And what
217-524: A set of wits, in reality the patriots that saved Britain". Amongst the club's membership were writers such as William Congreve , John Locke , Sir John Vanbrugh , and Joseph Addison , and politicians including Duke of Somerset , the Earl of Burlington , Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne , The Earl of Stanhope , Viscount Cobham , Abraham Stanyan and Sir Robert Walpole . Other notables included Samuel Garth , Charles Dartiquenave , Richard Steele , and
248-530: Is "Kit". Christopher Catt was the keeper of a pie-house in Shire Lane, by Temple Bar (then located in Fleet Street ), 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 Joseph Addison in The Spectator ) as the origin of the club's name. It is possible that
279-527: Is abandoned". David Brownlee has claimed that it was influenced by the reformist political movement and the High Victorian architectural movement and has described it as a "regular mongrel affair" while Turnor described it as the "last great secular building of the Gothic Revival". The Government Art Collection contains a painting by Henry Tanworth Wells depicting Queen Victoria opening
310-560: The Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. The design involves a symmetrical main frontage of facing The Strand; the central section, which is stepped back, features an arched doorway leading to the Great Hall; it has a five-part window in a carved surround on the first floor and a gable containing a rose window above. At the top of the gable is a sculpture of Jesus with a flèche behind. There are also statues of Moses , Solomon and Alfred
341-457: The Dukes of Grafton , Devonshire , Kingston , Richmond , Manchester , Dorset , and Lords Sunderland and Wharton . Of some notoriety were Lord Mohun and the Earl of Berkeley . The artist Sir Godfrey Kneller was also a member, his 48 portraits in a standard "kit-cat" format of 36 by 28 inches, painted over more than twenty years, form the most complete known members list of
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#1732801971323372-481: The Harveian Oration , in which he advocated a scheme dating from some ten years back for providing dispensaries for the relief of the sick poor, as a protection against the greed of the apothecaries. In 1699 he published a mock-heroic poem, The Dispensary , in six cantos, which had an instant success, passing through three editions within a year. In this, he ridiculed the apothecaries and their allies among
403-652: The London School of Economics . The nearest London Underground stations are Chancery Lane and Temple . The Central Criminal Court , widely known as the Old Bailey after its street, is about 1 ⁄ 2 mile (0.8 km) to the east—a Crown Court centre with no direct connection with the Royal Courts of Justice. For centuries these courts were located in Westminster Hall ; however, in
434-748: The Victorian Gothic Revival style built in the 1870s and opened by Queen Victoria in 1882. It is one of the largest courts in Europe . It is a Grade I listed building . It is located on the Strand within the City of Westminster , near the boundary with the City of London ( Temple Bar ). It is surrounded by the four Inns of Court , St Clement Danes church, the Australian High Commission , King's College London and
465-524: The 19th century, justices decided the courts needed a purpose-built structure. Much of the preparatory legal work was completed by Edwin Wilkins Field including promotion of the Courts of Justice Building Act 1865 ( 28 & 29 Vict. c. 48) and the Courts of Justice Concentration (Site) Act 1865 ( 28 & 29 Vict. c. 49). A statue of Field stands in the building. Parliament paid £1,453,000 for
496-460: The 6-acre (24,000 m ) site upon which 450 houses had to be demolished. The search for a design for the Law Courts was by way of a competition, a then-common approach to selecting a design and an architect. The competition ran from 1866 to 1867 and the twelve architects competing for the contract each submitted designs for the site. In 1868 it was finally decided that George Edmund Street
527-544: The Great , the four statues symbolising the pillars of English legal tradition. There are towers containing lancet windows on either side of the central section with side wings beyond. At the eastern end of the Strand frontage is a tall clock tower topped by a pyramidal roof, finial and flagpole; it contains a clock and five bells (weighing a total of 8¼ tons) by Gillett, Bland & Co. . Internally, courts are arranged off
558-414: The Great Hall which runs north–south; there is a courtyard to the east with offices for courtroom staff arranged round the courtyard. The Great Hall contains a bust of Queen Victoria by the sculptor, Alfred Gilbert . Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner has described the building as "an object lesson in free composition, with none of the symmetry of the classics, yet not undisciplined where symmetry
589-635: The building in 1882. Samuel Garth Sir Samuel Garth FRS (1661 – 18 January 1719) was an English physician and poet . Garth was born in Bolam in County Durham and matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge in 1676, graduating B.A. in 1679 and M.A. in 1684. He took his M.D. and became a member of the College of Physicians in 1691. He settled as a physician in London and soon acquired
620-400: The building. However, these disputes were eventually settled and the building took eight years to complete; it was officially opened by Queen Victoria on 4 December 1882. Street died before the building was opened, overcome by the work. The building was paid for by cash accumulated in court from the estates of the intestate to the sum of £700,000. Oak work and fittings in the court cost
651-594: The case remains interesting as an early example of attempts to use 'expert testimony' and forensic science evidence in a trial. He was notably sharp-tongued: "God help the country where St Leger is made a judge"! he exclaimed in 1714, on hearing that Sir John St Leger , an Irish Whig barrister, had been appointed a High Court judge in Ireland . For a while, he owned the manor of Edgcott in Buckinghamshire . He died on 18 January 1719. In 1697 he delivered
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#1732801971323682-563: 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 Elkanah Settle wrote a poem "To the most renowned the President and
713-937: The club. Many of these portraits currently hang in galleries created in a partnership between the National Portrait Gallery and the National Trust at Beningbrough Hall in North Yorkshire. 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: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ; Lady Godolphin , Lady Sunderland , Lady Bridgewater , and Lady Monthermer , all daughters of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough , except Lady Mary Wortley Montagu who
744-554: The pell-mell pack of toasts Of old Cats and young Kits. John Vanbrugh's modern biographer Kerry Downes suggests that the club's origins go back to before the Glorious Revolution of 1688; and that its political importance for the promotion of Whig objectives was greater before it became known. Those objectives were a strong Parliament , a limited monarchy, resistance to France, and the Protestant succession to
775-569: The physicians. Garth’s work is a satirical take on the traditional epic poem, and is perhaps one of the better examples of the “medical poetry” genre. Long has he been of that amphibious fry, Bold to prescribe, and busy to apply; His shop the gazing vulgar's eyes employs, With foreign trinkets and domestic toys. Here mummies lay, most reverently stale, And there the tortoise hung her coat of mail; Not far from some huge shark's devouring head The flying-fish their finny pinions spread. Aloft in rows large poppy-heads were strung, And near,
806-500: The rest of the Knights of the most Noble Order of the Toast." It was this very habit of "toasting" that led Dr. Arbuthnot to produce the following epigram , which hints at yet another possible origin of the club's name: 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
837-412: The stars know nothing of foretells. Our manufactures now they merely sell, And their true value treacherously tell; Nay, they discover, too, their spite is such, That health, than crowns more valued, cost not much; Whilst we must steer our conduct by these rules, To cheat as tradesmen, or to starve as fools. He is also remembered as the author of Claremont , a descriptive poem. He translated
868-585: The throne. Downes cites John Oldmixon , who knew many of those involved, and who wrote in 1735 of how some club members "before the Revolution [of 1688] met frequently in the Evening at a Tavern, near Temple Bar , to unbend themselves after Business, and have a little free and cheerful Conversation in those dangerous Times". Horace Walpole , son of Kit-Cat Robert Walpole , refers to the respectable middle-aged 18th-century Kit-Cat club as "generally mentioned as
899-437: Was accused with some friends of the murder of a Quaker woman called Sarah Stout. The prosecution asserted that because the body was floating when found, that it must have been put in the water after death. Opinions were given at the trial by Samuel Garth and Hans Sloane . It appears that aside from the fact that the body was floating when found, there was no other evidence to support the charge. The defendants were acquitted, but
930-583: Was the daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, 5th Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull , and only seven years old when toasted; the Duchess of Bolton , the Duchess of Beaufort , the Duchess of St Albans ; Anne Long , a daughter of Sir James Long, 2nd Baronet , and friend of Jonathan Swift ; Catherine Barton , Newton 's niece and Charles Montagu 's mistress; Mrs. Brudenell and Lady Wharton, Lady Carlisle and Mrs. Kirk and Mademoiselle Spanheim, among them. Those toasted had their names engraved on
961-412: Was the winner. Building was started in 1873 by Messrs Bull & Sons of Southampton. Its masons led a serious strike at an early stage which threatened to extend to the other trades and caused a temporary stoppage of the works. In consequence, foreign workmen were brought in – mostly Germans. This aroused bitter hostility on the part of the men on strike, and the newcomers had to be housed and fed within