That member might have ordered a few stiff whiskies after hearing what happened at the Garrick last week: a vote on whether to open the club to women. In the end, the 161-year-old preserve of actors, lawyers, judges and journalists voted 362 to 94 against. But the issue won’t die. This week the United Oxford and Cambridge University Club vote,$ on admitting women to full-fledged membership.
They may prove no more open-minded than the Garrick. Dwindling memberships have shut down many of the 200 clubs that dotted London at the turn of the century. Still, just a handful of London’s 40 surviving clubs have even partially dropped the gender bar. And it’s not just because of “old buffers will be defeated in the fullness of time,” as one Garrick member put it. An informal poll of Oxford and Cambridge clubbers found that members in their 30s are the most adamant. Says London columnist Janet Daley, who attacked the Garrick policy as sexist: “Men of this background just cannot conceive of women as friends.” Those who can, however, may now join clubs, of a more liberal stripe. The Academy Club, for instance, has only one requirement of its members-that they wear shoes.
