The Birmingham Bean Club is a loyalist dining club founded in Birmingham, England shortly after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, serving as a forum for confidential discussion between the leading Tory citizens of the growing industrial town and the gentlemen of the surrounding counties.
[4] In a town with a tradition of Radicalism and an influential Nonconformist minority, the Bean Club was strongly Tory and exclusively Anglican.
[7] The Bean Club was reinvigorated after the dramatic election of Thomas Skipwith – a disaffected Bean Club member – to one of the Warwickshire county seats with the votes of the Birmingham freeholders in 1769, as Birmingham's electoral influence was made clear and the leading county Tories made renewed efforts to reach an accommodation with the town.
[10] 56 new members were elected to the club between 1770 and 1773 – more than during the entire previous decade – and 36 of these came from Birmingham, including Samuel Aris in 1770.
Edward Foley and William Lygon, both Members of Parliament for Worcestershire, served as county stewards in 1784, by which time members lived as far away as Bridgnorth in Shropshire, Stone and Burton on Trent in Staffordshire, Stoke in Herefordshire, Malvern in Worcestershire, Appleby in Leicestershire and Daventry in Northamptonshire.