The club was formed shortly after the mass defection of scores of Liberal MPs and Peers over the First Home Rule Bill, to create the new Liberal Unionist party.
Because of this, many Liberal Unionist politicians found they were not wholly welcome in established Conservative clubs like the Carlton, but were equally shunned in traditionally Liberal clubs like the Reform.
Consequently, the club was set up for Liberal Unionists, and moved to its Pall Mall clubhouse in 1888.
The Clubhouse had originally been built for the short-lived Junior Naval and Military Club in 1875, which accumulated so much debt over the building that it went bankrupt in 1879.
Gentleman forces me to remind him that he was a member of the National Liberal Club", only to be told by Carson "I was elected as a Unionist.