One of London’s oldest private clubs votes on Tuesday on a possible opening to women, a subject which is tearing this venerable institution apart.
Like other prestigious clubs, the Garrick Club is reserved for men under an old rule, regularly denounced as archaic and a symbol of masculine intimacy in places of power and influence.
The institution founded in 1831 counts among its members numerous judges and lawyers, journalists, senior civil servants as well as political leaders.
According to a list revealed last March by “The Guardian”, King Charles III and the actors Brian Cox (Succession) and Benedict Cumberbatch are, for example, among them.
Under pressure after these revelations, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Richard Moore and the secretary general of Downing Street Simon Case, who is the highest civil servant in the country, announced that they were leaving the Garrick Club.
The question of the admission of women into the few “gentlemen’s clubs” that still exist has become more and more pressing in recent years.
In 2015, a vote on the subject did not achieve a sufficient majority. But this time, “many members of the Garrick Club, including Sting, Mark Knopfler and other major actors and producers, have written to the club’s president threatening to leave if its members do not vote in favor of women’s access » Tuesday, John Simpson, one of the editors-in-chief of BBC News, himself a member of the club, said on X.
In 2021, a petition received the support of Cherie Blair, renowned lawyer and wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. She recounted how in 1976 she had to stay outside while her future husband was allowed in. “It is scandalous that so little progress has been made since then,” she wrote.
At the time, the signatories of this petition highlighted that the ban on women, even though many judges and lawyers belonged to the club, deprived them of opportunities to create a network in this circle of influence, particularly in professions where they were already underrepresented.
