Great Info, as per folks, but may I be a bit inquisitive here, and maybe a bit thick, as I was looking at an old post of the Conservative Club, in those magnificent old buildings in Temple Row, and I then had some old notes about the BEAN CLUB, another staunchly conservative bunch, and I wondered if the Union, Conservative and Bean Clubs were ever related in some way? These are my notes on the Bean Club....fire away of I am way off any link.....!
Birmingham Bean Club
The
Birmingham Bean Club was a loyalist
dining club founded in
Birmingham,
Englandshortly after the
Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, serving as a forum for confidential discussion between the leading
Tory citizens of the growing industrial town and the gentlemen of the surrounding counties. It both reflected and encouraged the 18th century establishment of Birmingham as the political hub of the surrounding region,[ seeking to accommodate the political implications of the development of Birmingham within the framework of the 18th century constitution. By the end of the century the club was described as including "representatives of the Magnates of the County, the Gentlemen and Tradespeople of the town, the Clergy and the officers from the Barracks, and the principal representative actors from the local theatre".
In a town with a tradition of
Radicalism and an influential
Nonconformist minority, the Bean Club was strongly
Tory and exclusively
Anglican. No
Dissenter was ever admitted, and its membership excluded not just influential local
Whig aristocrats such as the
Earl of Warwick, the
Earl of Conway and
Lord Archer, but also more moderate Tories such as the
Earl of Aylesford, and influential conservative Birmingham Anglicans who were closely associated with Dissenters, such as
Matthew Boulton and
Samuel Garbett.
The club was re-established in May 1749 and quickly built up a national importance. Its leading figures –
Lord Craven,
Lord Leigh and, from the mid-1750s, the
Earl of Denbigh – effectively controlled the selection of
Members of Parliament for
Warwickshire during the early and mid 18th century. The 1750s and 1760s were difficult times for Toryism nationwide, however, and the club's fortunes reflected this. Meetings were cut back from weekly to monthly in 1753, and in 1759 they were further reduced to annual occasions. This era also saw strained relations between the Birmingham and country members: only 42 of the 387 members in 1755 were from Birmingham and there is evidence of tension between the groups. Most notably, no attempt was made to elect
Samuel Aris when he succeeded his father
Thomas Aris as editor of the conservative
Birmingham Gazette in 1761.
The Bean Club was reinvigorated after the dramatic election of
Thomas Skipwith – a disaffected Bean Club member – to one of the Warwickshire county seats with the votes of the Birmingham freeholders in 1769, as Birmingham's electoral influence was made clear and the leading county Tories made renewed efforts to reach an accommodation with the town. 56 new members were elected to the club between 1770 and 1773 - more than during the entire previous decade - and 36 of these came from Birmingham, including Samuel Aris in 1770. The frequency of meetings was increased to quarterly in 1771. The club's members became increasingly influential in the government of the town over the following decades - 8 members of the
Street Commissioners elected in 1769 were Bean Club members, as were 7 of the committee of the
Birmingham General Hospital in 1765, and members were prominent among the subscribers to Birmingham's Anglican Sunday Schools.
The club also took a leading role in the establishment of the "Birmingham interest" as a force in regional politics after 1774. All of the Members of Parliament for Warwickshire elected between 1769 and 1782 on the back of the strength of the Birmingham freeholders' vote were County Stewards of the Bean Club - Skipwith,
Sir Charles Holte,
Sir George Shuckburgh and
Robert Lawley. Neither were the Bean Club's interests were not confined to Warwickshire.
Edward Foley and
William Lygon, both Members of Parliament for
Worcestershire, served as county stewards in 1784, by which time members lived as far away as
Bridgnorth in
Shropshire,
Stone and
Burton on Trent in
Staffordshire,
Stoke in
Herefordshire,
Malvern in
Worcestershire,
Appleby in
Leicestershire and
Daventry in
Northamptonshire.
Although the society claimed in 1769 to be "ever devoted to the support of Liberty and Independence", the opinions of members were split over the
American War of Independence, and adopted an increasingly conservative outlook over the course of the 1770s. By the 1790s Bean Club members were closely involved in the formation of loyalist associations in the wake of the
Priestley riots, such as the Birmingham Church and King Club founded in 1792. I think they met at Cromwell Hall in Winson Green at one time....?
https://sites.google.com/site/lol242birmingham/history/birmingham-s-orange-history
