National Liberal Club

About

From liberal politics to the liberal arts, the National Liberal Club was founded by Gladstone in 1882 as an inclusive version of a traditional London club.

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This is the official facebook page for people interested in the National Liberal Club - a traditional London club co-founded by W.E. Gladstone in 1882, to provide "a home for democracy, void of the class distinction" associated with the other London clubs of the day.

The club remains completely independent, but as the name implies, continues to be closely identified with the historic Liberal tradition and with Liberals worldwide. Overlooking the Thames, the club is in the heart of Whitehall, and is blessed with "the most splendid terrace in all of London."

The NLC's roll-call of members has contained seven Prime Ministers (including Winston Churchill and Ramsay MacDonald, as well as every Liberal Prime Minister since Gladstone), while in the literary sphere, members have included G.K. Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw, Bram Stoker, Dylan Thomas, Edgar Wallace and H.G. Wells.

Membership is open to men and women. Indeed, the NLC was the first major London gentlemen's club to admit women on an equal basis; and from its inception it was the first to admit members without implicit or explicit racial and religious barriers, with early members including Britain's first non-white MP Dadabhai Naoroji, who joined in 1885. Members are either "Political Members" (who sign a declaration that they are Liberal in their politics) or "Ordinary Members" (who pledge that they will not use the club for any cause harmful to liberalism).

More information on the club is available through our website at http://www.nlc.org.uk/ including details of the club's facilities, membership rates, and its network of over 130 reciprocal clubs worldwide.

A separate members-only group exists at https://www.facebook.com/groups/nlcmembers and contains details of current club events. As members of that facebook group must be members of the NLC, group applicants will have their names checked against a current list of NLC members.

"The National Liberal Club occupies a clubhouse of breathtaking grandeur, but its proudest boast is to be “the most inclusive club in London”. Wherever you’re from, whatever your skin colour, gender or sexuality, you can be yourself at the NLC, provided only that you respect the right of others to do the same. We believe in celebrating difference and enjoying life.Founded in 1882, the National Liberal Club built what was at the time of construction London’s largest purpose-built clubhouse. It has been a bastion for broadly Liberal values ever since, with an ethnically and socially diverse membership since its launch in the 1880s, and being the first of London’s major “gentlemen’s clubs” to admit women."