The Garrick Club’s decision to allow female members for the first time in its 193-year history has been hailed as one of the “small battles” on the road to gender equality by a leading feminist campaigner.
Almost 60 per cent of members voted in favour of the change after new club rules said that only a 50 per cent majority was needed. Previously a two-thirds majority was necessary.
Fashion entrepreneur Emily Bendell welcomed the decision saying the club had “finally been dragged into the 21st century” and described the decision as a blow against the Garrick’s “boys’ club mentality… that holds women back”.
She said it was only when the members were “named and shamed” that change happened. Ms Bendell added: “A win is a win. The road to gender equality is paved with thousands of small battles, and today we have shown that even the Garrick’s old guard cannot escape this long march of history.”
The club, which has been male-only since it opened in Covent Garden in 1831, draws its members from the worlds of politics, art, law and the media.
Among them are deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden, actors Brian Cox and Benedict Cumberbatch and broadcaster Stephen Fry.
The publication of the membership list brought the male-only policy into the spotlight and prompted a series of high profile resignations with Cabinet Secretary Simon Case understood to have renounced his membership despite having claimed to MPs he was working to reform the rules from within. The head of MI6 Sir Richard Moore was also reported to have left the club. The new rules do not mean the Garrick faces an immediate influx of female members.
Seven women including actress Juliet Stevenson and former politician Amber Rudd were previously nominated as prospective members in case of a rule change but the process of becoming a member can take several years. It is understood nominees need enough supporters to fill two pages of an official book and then have to attend a number of dinners as a guest of their supporters before membership takes effect.
Stevenson said she would be “interested” in becoming a member, telling BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme: “The Garrick has for hundreds of years been a club largely dedicated to the theatre community and then the arts community. Any club that is dedicated to that community must by definition be open to all.”
Former culture minister Lord Vaizey said he supported women being admitted as members. The former member told Today: “I don’t think the Garrick is a secret cabal of men that is quietly running a country, that has now been broken up. I think it’s just a convivial place where people go and have lunch and dinner, and that’s as valid for women as it is for men... When I was a member it really was quite backward — women couldn’t even walk up the front stairs.
“I don’t think it’s constructed in a way to keep women away from power.”
