One of the UK’s oldest and most distinguished clubs has decided to allow women to join as members 193-years after its establishment.
The Garrick Club, founded in 1831 and named after the 18th-century actor and playwright David Garrick, was created as a place for actors and art lovers to gather and socialise.
On Monday night, during the club’s annual general meeting, it announced it would invite Judi Dench and Siân Phillips as distinguished members to its exclusive London institute.
Historically, women were repeatedly blocked from entering the club unless accompanied by an existing member. In March this year, one British senior lawyer said there was in fact “no prohibition on the admission of female members.”
“There is nothing in the language of the rules which excludes the admission of women as members,” he found. “Indeed… there is no restriction of the proposal of candidates for membership to men.”
The club’s latest decision comes months after the club voted to admit women, with 60 per cent of voters backing a change to the rules. During that time, seven prominent British women were nominated as prospective female members, including the classicist Mary Beard, the Former Conservative Home Secretary Amber Rudd, the Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman, actress Juliet Stevenson, Globe Theatre chairwoman Margaret Casely-Hayford and the new Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika.
In March, when a leaked copy of the membership list was published by the Guardian, a number of existing members resigned, including Richard Moore, the head of MI6, and Simon Case, the head of the civil service.
At the time, one former senior civil servant said clubs like the Garrick were “clearly discriminatory.”
“I always hope that some government might make membership of a club like this a disqualification for a public appointment,” Jill Rutter said.
Members of the club include King Charles and Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, former England football manager Roy Hodgson, actors Stephen Fry, Benedict Cumberbatch, Matthew Macfadyen, Brian Cox and levelling up secretary Michael Gove.
Last month, Labour’s shadow women and equalities secretary Anneliese Dodds said she would refuse membership to the club if she was asked. “That’s not really how I would want to spend my time,” she told LBC’s Matthew Wright.
“You need to have more women involved in those decisions about where investment goes. But, of course, we could wait for a very, very long time until we got there. So, actually, a big part of the solution has got to come from the men of course, the overwhelming majority of whom, I believe, want to see a more equal future.”
“They want to make sure there’s opportunities out there. And certainly in our economy, they know that makes pretty hard-headed economic sense, because if you’re not backing women in our economy, then you’re going to have less growth.”
“Surely we’ve got to have both. We’ve got to have women and working-class people, we’ve got to have minority people, we’ve got to have them in those powerful positions. But everyone also has got to be working towards pulling down barriers.”
This week, Mary Ann Sieghart, the author of the Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, said: “The Garrick is symbolically really important. The principle has been accepted and that’s the main thing. I’m thrilled that they have started accepting female members.”