Ian Board

Ian David Archibald Board (16 December 1929 – 26 June 1994) was an English nightclub owner who ran The Colony Room Club in Dean Street in London's Soho district, from 1981 to 1994, having taken it over from Muriel Belcher who founded the private drinking club in 1948.

[1] Board served behind the bar at the Colony Room Club for 46 years, initially as Belcher's barman, and after she died as its proprietor.

[2] He assiduously cultivated the custom of artists including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Michael Andrews, and Barry Flanagan.

"[1] Board was known for carrying on Belcher's tradition of obscene language, with tirades to drunken customers such as "Look at you, you great lump, just take a look at yourself.

For fuck's sake pull yourself together..."[1] Board was gay, and the club under Belcher, herself a lesbian, had always been a safe space to be openly homosexual.