The Portland Club is a London card-playing game club and the recognised early authority on the games of whist and bridge.
It is reputedly the oldest card club in the world.
Two newspapers reported the event: The Star of 5 November 1824 advertised: “In consequence of the failure of the Berners-street Banking-house,[3] which possessed its funds, the Stratford Club, in Oxford-street, is about to be dissolved.” And, on 7 January 1825, The Morning Herald wrote: “It is the rump of the Old Stratford Club, we now hear, which assumes the imposing title of the Portland; and not, as we had been led to suppose, an entirely new Society.” The Portland Club remained in its Stratford Place/Oxford Street premises until 1890.
It then moved to 9, St James's Square, in a house that the club had bought there.
[4] However, in 1943 the Royal Institute of International Affairs bought the house from the Portland Club, which moved to Charles Street, an address which it left in 1969 for 42, Half Moon Street.