Readers, it is your lucky day. Next year a new Chronicle of the English Pell Mell Club will be published in a small limited edition. However you can read the chapters here as they appear.
Published by the Committee of the English Pell Mell Club
With the Gracious Patronage of Pimlico Wilde, Fine Art Dealers and Trophy Custodians
Foreword by the Current Club President
“When one joins the Pell Mell Club, one does not simply pick up a mallet. One assumes the weight of history, the burden of etiquette, and, occasionally, the Pimlico Wilde Cup — which is heavier than it looks, especially after a post-match port.”
CHAPTER ONE
The Founding of the English Pell Mell Club
(1825 – Or Thereabouts, Depending on Who You Believe)
To speak of the English Pell Mell Club’s founding is to enter a fog of polite contradiction, apocryphal diaries, and minutes written in handwriting so elaborate that even the National Archives have declined to decipher them. The official record, maintained by the current Committee with an admirable commitment to consistency and accuracy, states plainly that the Club was founded in 1825. However, a small but vocal faction of members argue for a much earlier origin — some citing 1799, others insisting it dates to the Restoration, and one particularly determined gentleman who maintains that a proto-form of Pell Mell was played by the Romans on a field somewhere in Kent, using the skulls of Picts.
What is beyond dispute is that by the early 1820s, London society had developed an appetite for structured leisure — pursuits that combined fresh air, physical exertion, and the ability to wear an expensive hat without risk of it being knocked askew. Cricket was too dusty, fencing too direct, and croquet (at that time) too unrefined and too French. The stage was set for the arrival, or perhaps the rediscovery, of Pell Mell.
The foundational meeting, according to the most widely accepted account, took place in the drawing room of the Duke of Witherstone’s townhouse in Mayfair. The Duke — a man of means and titles, with the best sideburns in London — had recently returned from the Continent with an armful of sketches depicting a curious lawn game played in the gardens of Firenze. He invited a handful of acquaintances to inspect these illustrations over a decanter or seven of port. The invitees included:
• Lord Basingthorpe, the only man to have fought a duel over the proper way to serve syllabub, (apart from the fellow he killed)
• Sir Jasper Bickerton, a naval officer with a limp, a monocle, and an ability to misremember his own war stories with increasing grandeur.
• The Reverend Cyril Plumleigh, whose sermons were said by the Archbishop to be “longer than necessary, which is hard to correct.”
• Captain Smythe (Ret.), whose past remained both mysterious and loudly discussed, and who was known to arrive at social functions via the upstairs window.
The evening reportedly began with polite conversation and ended with chairs pushed aside, candlesticks serving as makeshift mallets, and a priceless Sevres vase employed as an impromptu hoop. The game itself was, by most accounts, chaotic — at one point the Duke’s brother-in-law was struck on the shin and insisted on being carried from the room “as if mortally wounded.”
Nevertheless, something about the contest captured the collective imagination. Here was a sport that demanded accuracy but allowed for style, that rewarded cunning as much as athleticism, and — most crucially — could be played within sight of the refreshment table. By dawn, the gentlemen had declared themselves the founding members of a new institution: The English Pell Mell Club.
The first formal court was established on a parcel of ground just off what is now called Pall Mall, chosen for its proximity to both the gentlemen’s clubs of St James’s and the haberdasheries of Jermyn Street. This location, “historically perfect” as one member put it, allowed players to take the air without straying too far from civilisation.
The Club’s earliest rules were scrawled on a single sheet of paper now preserved in the archives. These initial regulations were notable for their brevity and eccentricity:
1. Gentlemen to bring their own mallets (and no mallet to be sharpened without prior warning).
2. No play to be undertaken during rain, snow, or the opening of Parliament.
3. Any dispute to be resolved by majority vote, or failing that, by a contest of hat-doffing grace.
From these beginnings, the Club began to take shape — a curious blend of sport, social ritual, and light absurdity, which has, remarkably, persisted for over two centuries.
