Groucho Marx famously declared he would not deign to become a member of any club that would have him. The Groucho, on Soho’s Dean Street, might not have had the pleasure of inviting him in, but it does bare his name and has become famous as a hole in the wall retreat for creatives from Damien Hirst to Damon Albarn. How Groucho would have fared in such company will never be known (he died eight years before the club opened in 1985), but our guess is he may have swallowed his words (and a pint or two).

Across town on the far side of Soho, Drury Lane’s The Garrick Club is in the middle of its own membership debate. This time it isn’t namesakes casually declaring they won’t join, it’s a former prime minister’s wife joining the call for equal membership.

The campaign to force the men-only Garrick Club to admit women has been underway for sometime now but gained steam this week when Cherie Blair joined the fight, signing a 

 to allow female lawyers the same networking opportunities as their male counterpoints.

“Forty-five years ago, I was left standing outside the Garrick while my supervisor took my fellow pupil Tony Blair inside. It’s outrageous that so little progress has been made since then,” Blair wrote on the petition, which has been signed by hundreds of top female QCs, barristers and solicitors.

An etching of the Garrick Club dining room, 1897


“We believe that membership of the Garrick cannot be consistent with a commitment to equality and diversity. We urge the Garrick’s members to consider whether they would remain members of a club that excluded based on race, religion, or sexuality. We invite the members of the Garrick to behave ethically, to call a vote and to vote in favour of admitting women,” wrote the petition’s founders, adding “When women are excluded without good reason or cast as ‘guests’ – good enough to be wined and dined but not to belong – in a forum in which professionally advantageous invisible connections are made, it undermines the position of women and feeds the conscious or unconscious bias of men.”

It’s a vital move, and one that shouldn’t be necessary in 2021. Such antiquated policies should never have had a place in society. This isn’t, however, the first time that reformers have tried to make the Garrick’s policy fair. Until now, (as the need for a new petition would suggest) all previous attempts have failed.

In 2011 Lady Hale, the first woman among 12 supreme court judges and later the only female president of the court so far said “I regard it as quite shocking that so many of my colleagues belong to the Garrick, but they don’t see what all the fuss is about.” She went on to highlight that judges “should be committed to the principle of equality for all”.

"It’s outrageous that so little progress has been made in 45 years..."

, 50.5% of the club’s members did recently vote in favour of admitting women in 2015. But, the club requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass motions so nothing changed.

This time, there does seem to be more support for female membership, especially from those in the public eye. “Three former Conservative MPs and 11 QCs were among those who said they would vote to continue to exclude female members,” Amelia Gentleman wrote. “Other members such as the Tory minister Michael Gove and the actors Stephen Fry, Damian Lewis and Hugh Bonneville indicated before the poll that they were in favour of extending membership to women.”

The Garrick Club has not yet released a statement on the issue.

According to its website, the Garrick Club was founded in 1831 by a group of “literary gentlemen”. The aim was to make the club a place where “actors and men of refinement and education might meet on equal terms’, where ‘patrons of the drama and its professors were to be brought together”. Women of refinement, it seemed, need not apply.

Today, women are permitted as guests (“Ladies may wear trousers but not jeans. No denim, trainers or gym shoes are allowed”) but seem not to be deemed worthy of full membership. In other words, they aren’t admitted on an equal footing as male guests but are seen as ‘additions’, guests, there at the behest of the men who invited them – in other words, second class citizens. It is perhaps this isolationism that has made the Garrick one of London’s last remaining gentleman’s clubs; by refusing to move with the times it may well soon be extinct, too.

The launch of Harry Evans&#8217; book &#8216;Pictures on a Page&#8217; at the Garrick. Dennis Healey is seated, centre.


Today, the club hosts mainly those in the law profession – hence Blair’s involvement and the proliferation of law professionals’ signatures on the petition. And while discussing work on premises is banned, it is viewed as an informal networking opportunity. By denying women a seat at the table – especially by denying them a seat as equals – the club can be seen to be keeping sexism alive in one of the country’s oldest professions.

, Rachel Crasnow QC, a senior equality lawyer, and a signee of the petition said “The bar has an ongoing problem with inclusion, diversity and equal pay to say nothing of retention. I’m concerned about what message young women entering the profession are given if the judge before whom they appear or even their pupil supervisor has chosen to join a club which has no regard for gender equality.” It’s a highly valid point.

There is another way to look at this. As Esther Walker asks in 

 “Elite, boys-only clubs like the Garrick should let women be members – but are we really missing out?”

It’s another valid point. While women (and people of any gender identity, for that matter) should be able to access any space men can, are all of these spaces really worth their time. Sure, those in the law profession may benefit from networking opportunities, but there may not be much else on offer.

“Experience tells me that what [women] are most likely to find is a collection of tired older men who have been strictly brought up to treat women in a particular way,” writes Walker. “The allure, to these men, of a men-only space is that they don’t have to stand up when a woman comes into the room, offer her their chair, mind their language or uncomfortably swallow belches. They don’t have to find unisex topics of conversation and can drone on about whatever takes their dull fancy.”

Walker goes on to point out that even if women are granted access to the Garrick Club there are many other networking opportunities that women may find inaccessible “I have no doubt that there are insidious matters at play that prevent women from networking effectively in all sectors, not just the law. Social events that start at 6.30pm, weekend networking functions, anything to do with golf. I could go on.”

The Garrick Club debacle, then, is illustrative of a wider issue about spaces both figurative and literal and who is allowed access. Maybe one day the stuffy old men of the Garrick will find themselves the last of a dying breed, quaffing port from cobwebbed glasses, wondering where everyone went like gender-swapped Miss Havishams. In the meantime, now is the time to open the doors wide, and for everyone.

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