Although its roots went back to the 1840s, it was properly formed in 1877 by members of a German émigré workers' education group, which soon became frequented by London radicals, and within a few years had led to the formation of similar clubs, sometimes in support and sometimes in rivalry.

The Rose Street Club provided a platform for the radical speakers and agitators of the day and produced its own paper, Freiheit—which was distributed over Europe, and especially Germany—and pamphlets for other groups and individuals.

However, Jonathan Moses has suggested that "their political ideals – the destruction of hierarchy, collective decision making, hostility to the state and capitalism, atheism and free love – did little to ingratiate them to Victorian England.

In a letter to Karl Kautsky he described them as Some 20–30 little societies which, under various names (always the same people), [who] have been persistently trying to look important for the past twenty years at least and always with the same lack of success ... One’s best course is to do justice to the aspirations without identifying oneself with the persons.

[28]Although Engels called them "very motley" societies,[29] in keeping with the tendency of the time to propagandize the existence of political organisations by bestowing them with "high-sounding titles which the old guard employed in the hope of attracting public interest",[24] in the words of E. P. Thompson, the Club was occasionally known as the "Local Rights Association for Rental and Sanitary Reform".

[20] The paper was published on the Rose Street premises, which also housed the editorial and composition offices,[31] and was the heart of a complex smuggling operation for European-wide distribution.

[37] The political scientist, Mark Bevir, has argued that[38] Much of the membership of Britain's early Marxist organizations came from the popular radicals of the London clubs and the British associates of the European exiles ...

[16] Originally dedicated to political propaganda,[3] Frank Kitz later recalled how the Rose Street Club gave hospitality, food, shelter, and advice on what the near future might bring their newly arrived compatriots.

[42] Other speakers and organisations that visited the Club included brothers Charles and James Murray, who led a discussion of the poetry of Shelley, with reference to his views on the Irish,[43][19] and Henry Hyndman.

[44][note 5] At one point, Hyndman expressed interest in the Rose Street Club forming the basis of an official Democratic Party,[45] and a meeting to discuss that proposal was held on 2 March 1881, which comprised a significant cross-section of radical thinkers of the age.

[50] In 1881 the Club held a joint mass-meeting with the Labour Emancipation League on Mile End Waste condemning the government's policy of providing financial assistance to encourage the unemployed to emigrate.

[55][note 8] The club also organised, and became the headquarters of, the defence committee[57]—called the English Revolutionary Society[58]—supporting Johann Most against his prosecution in April 1881,[57] led by radicals F. W. Soutter and Dr G. B.

[59] The committee New-York Tribune described how Most had been "locked up promptly at the time of his arrest",[60] and had subsequently been charged with publishing what they called "a scandalous, malicious and immoral libel, justifying assassination and murder, inciting persons to conspire against the lives of the sovereigns and rulers of Europe".

[20] One of Most's confederates was Andreas Scheu, a leading Austrian anarchist, tried for his politics by the government in 1880 and arriving in London four years later, when he joined the Rose Street Club.

[70] Along with Kitz,[71] another of the club's co-founders had been Victor Dave,[24] and anarchists Errico Malatesta, an Italian,[72] and the Russian Peter Kropotkin were also members during their stays in London.

Jack Williams regularly spoke at the Rose Street Club on matters ranging from Irish nationalism[note 11] to British republicanism, popular at the time among lower-class Londoners.

[76] Lane was an "intensely earnest" agitator (according to his colleague Ambrose Barker, and a "tireless propagandist" according to Harry Lee) for the Rose Street Club from the late 1870s.

[76] In 1880, Louise Michel, a leading French anarchist who had fought with and lived through the Commune, stayed at the Rose Street Club during her sojourn in London following her exile in New Caledonia.

[79] Although its membership was dominated by refugees,[80] the Rose Street Club has been described as overseeing a transition between the previous, older generation of political radicals—such as Chartists, English republicans and O'Brienites[note 13]—and the younger socialists and anarchists.