Shaw's letter set out that the club would be "a gathering place for farmers which could also serve as a platform, from which would go out to England news of all that was good in farming, with reports of any discussions about those things that needed to be done."

Its inaugural meeting on 9 December 1842 was held in a pub, the Hereford Arms, in King Street, Covent Garden.

Whitehall Court is an apartment block built in 1883-87 by the architect firm Archer & Green, with finance from the disgraced MP Jabez Balfour, who used the building's construction to conceal his embezzlement of funds.

In 1942, it moved sideways in the same block of flats to its current premises, which were formed by merging several apartments in 3 Whitehall Court.

[citation needed] The Club comprises bedrooms, function rooms, the Restaurant, Bar and Lounge and has a terrace overlooking the river Thames.