The club was founded "to bind together in one organisation liverymen of the various guilds in the bond of civic spirit, in service to the Ancient Corporation and in the maintenance of the priceless City Churches," and it serves as a social club for those in the City.

While membership was originally open only to City liverymen, it has since grown to include liverymen and freemen of the livery companies, City of London Companies without Livery, as well as assorted categories of associate membership.

The incumbent Lord Mayor of London is automatically elected patron of the club.

The City Livery Club has led something of a peripatetic existence, occupying the De Keyser's Royal Hotel on the Victoria Embankment from 1914 to 1923.

The 1996 closure of much of the college meant that new premises had to be found – at the Insurance Hall on Aldermanbury, and the club moved again to the Baltic Exchange on St. Mary Axe in 2003.