Wesley's biographer Henry D. Rack comments, "It was probably not, as is usually claimed, a meeting of the so-called Calve's Head Club, whose reputation in any case may owe much to tory propaganda.
"I was inform'd," the narrator relates, that it was kept in no fix'd House, but that they remov'd, as they saw convenient; that the Place they met in when he was with 'em, was in a blind Ally, about Moorfields, where an Ax hung up in the Club-Room, and was Reverenced, as a Principal Symbol in this Diabolical Sacrament.
A calf's skull was filled with wine or another liquor and members toasted "The Pious Memory of those worthy Patriots that had kill'd the Tyrant, and deliver'd their Country from his Arbitrary Sway".
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, the club survived till 1734, when the diners were mobbed owing to the popular ill-feeling which their outrages on good taste provoked, and the riot which ensued put a final stop to the meetings.
[2] 1 February 1735 Thursday in the evening a disorder of a very particular nature happened in Suffolk-street: ’Tis said that several young gentlemen of distinction having met at a house there, call’d themselves the Calf’s-Head Club; and about seven o’clock a bonfire being lit up before the door, just when it was in the height, they brought a calf’s-head to the window dress’d in a napkin-cap, and after some Huzza’s, threw it into the fire: The mob were entertained with strong-beer, and for some time halloo’d as well as the best; but taking a disgust at some healths which were proposed, grew so outrageous, that they broke all the windows, forc’d themselves into the house, and would probably have pull’d it down, had not the Guards been sent for to prevent further mischief.