Club (organization)
[2] The oldest English clubs were merely informal periodic gatherings of friends for the purpose of dining or drinking with one another.
In 1659 John Aubrey wrote, "We now use the word clubbe for a sodality [a society, association, or fraternity of any kind] in a tavern.
Another such club, founded by Ben Jonson, met at the Devil Tavern near Temple Bar, also in London.
[citation needed] The word “club,” in the sense of an association to promote good-fellowship and social intercourse, became common in England at the time of Tatler and The Spectator (1709–1712).
The clubs of the late 17th and early 18th century type resembled their Tudor forerunners in being oftenest associations solely for conviviality or literary coteries.
The characteristics of all these clubs were: These coffee-house clubs soon became hotbeds of political scandal-mongering and intriguing, and in 1675 King Charles II issued a proclamation which ran: “His Majesty hath thought fit and necessary that coffee houses be (for the future) put down and suppressed,” because “in such houses divers false, malitious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the Defamation of his Majesty’s Government and to the Disturbance of Peace and Quiet of the Realm.” So unpopular was this proclamation that it was almost instantly found necessary to withdraw it, and by Anne’s reign the coffee-house club was a feature of England’s social life.
[citation needed] The peripatetic lifestyle of the 18th and 19th century middle classes also drove the development of more residential clubs, which had bedrooms and other facilities.
Military and naval officers, lawyers, judges, members of Parliament and government officials tended to have an irregular presence in the major cities of the Empire, particularly London, spending perhaps a few months there before moving on for a prolonged period and then returning.
Clubbing with a number of like-minded friends to secure a large shared house with a manager was therefore a convenient solution.
[citation needed] The other sort of club meets occasionally or periodically and often has no clubhouse, but exists primarily for some specific object.
These in 1848 were repressed in Austria and Germany, and later clubs of Berlin and Vienna were mere replicas of their English prototypes.
Country clubs offer a variety of recreational sports facilities to their members and are usually located in suburban or rural areas.
Country clubs usually provide dining facilities to their members and guests, and frequently host special events like weddings.
Examples include science fiction clubs, ham radio, model railroading, collecting, creative and artistic pursuits, making, tinkering, sports, and adult education.
The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla warfare insurgencies, that hide their activities and memberships but maintain a public presence.
Latino immigrant adult and youth groups organized themselves as social clubs like: Black Eagles, Flaming Arrows, Paragons and Young Lords.
Membership to gentlemen's clubs require the ability to pay large fees as well as an invitation by existing members who seek new recruits who meet personal criteria such as lifestyle, moral base, etc.
[citation needed] The modern Gentlemen's club is occasionally proprietary, i.e. owned by an individual or private syndicate and run on a for-profit basis, but more frequently owned by the members who delegate to a committee the management of its affairs, first reached its highest development in London, where the district of St. James's has long been known as "Clubland".
