New Cavendish Club

It was founded in 1920 by Margaret Russell, Lady Ampthill in her capacity as Chairman of the Voluntary Aid Detachment of nurses during World War I, and was intended to be "a first class Ladies' Club" for veteran nurses of the VAD.

The club opened with its inaugural dinner on 14 June 1920, with a 999-year lease acquired on premises at Queen Anne House, 28 Cavendish Square.

The building was formerly Marshall Thomson's Hotel, which is described in William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair .

The club's dining room was originally staffed by VAD veterans from the war.

In 1957, the club sold its clubhouse, and moved in 1959 to its new premises in Great Cumberland Place, which required extensive modernisation - bomb damage from the war meant that the interior had to be almost entirely rebuilt from scratch.