Almost all the early American members were White Anglo-Saxon Protestants from the east coast and were connected through their shared socialization in the fraternities and sororities of universities such as Yale or Harvard.
Many American and British Pilgrims supported the appeasement policy towards Hitler's Germany, and in some cases even sympathized with the idea of seeing fascism as a “bulwark” against communism.
This changed with the onset of World War II and the bombing of Britain by the Germans, which led to expressions of solidarity from American Pilgrims with the British.
In March 1941, Winston Churchill delivered a speech before the Pilgrims in London in which he tried to present the Americans' entry into the war and victory over the Axis powers as inevitable.
On the American side, these included Henry Kissinger, Caspar Weinberger, Alexander Haig and George Shultz, who played important roles in the Nixon and Reagan administrations.
On the British side, members included Margaret Thatcher and NATO Secretary General Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, underlining the network's importance for Anglo-American relations during the Cold War.
In 2002, the Pilgrims Society celebrated its 100th anniversary at St James's Palace in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles.