financial difficulties and low membership caused the club to move its meetings to Mack’s Hotel in Brougham Street, in April 1864, selling its furniture, fittings, bedding, cutlery, etc.
It was built by local contractor, J. C. Taylor to designs by noted Ballarat and Melbourne architect, Charles Douglas Figgis.
[1] It is a two storey brick structure on an asymmetrical plan with a highly decorative facade featuring a monumental verandah and broken pediment gable.
[4] A small set of iron gates were installed at the top of the front steps in 1895 to keep out the wandering dogs, which were a local nuisance at the time.
[1] Membership has included many prominent Victorian citizens, in particular some key figures of the nineteenth century Geelong and Western District wool industry including merchant, woolbroker and politician, James Ford Strachan, three-time Victoria premier Graham Berry, woolbrokers C J Dennys, EH Lascelles, and A C Ibbotsen, pastoralists AA Austin of Barwon Park, FF Armytage, Robert and Andrew Chirnside of Werribee Park, and Sir WJ Clarke of Rupertswood, Francis Ormond, principal of The Geelong College George Morrison, TP Manifold of Purrumbeete, and WR Wilson of St Albans.