Table of Contents

Introduction
Emergence: to 1688
National Expansion: 1688-1760
An Associational World: 1760-1800
Engines of Growth
Membership
Organization
Regional and Ethnic Societies
Freemasons
Benefit Clubs
Overseas
Impact
Conclusion

Reviews

Unlike governments and great estates, bird-fancying clubs and oratorical societies do not often tend to leave meticulously kept and carefully housed sets of records. The author has perforce had to fall back on the scraps and fragments provided in diaries, collections of letters and old newspaper columns. These scattered sources he has scoured with impeccable industry and care. His findings, too, have been beautifully arranged and lucidly written down. This volume will surely for long remain the authoritative treatment of the subject - in every way a worthy successor to Clark's now classic study of the English alehouse. Angus McInnes, University of Keele. British Clubs and Societies bears the stamp of authority: it covers a constellation of clubs, and provides a persuasive account of their development ... a characteristically fact-packed but thoughtful study. Roy Porter, London Review of Books