The Pitt Club of Cambridge, penniless circle of golden youth

Theaters, museums, bankrupt restaurants: there is no shortage of sad stories in the UK in these times of a pandemic. There is one that is certainly less crying in the cottages: the setbacks of the Pitt Club in Cambridge. Greg Barradale, a reporter for the news site The Tab, revealed in early September that this place of socialization for the student elite, almost bicentennial and exclusively male until 2017, was so strapped for cash that it urgently demanded 50,000 pounds sterling (54,000 euros) from its members, to avoid going out of business.

Founded in 1835, the Pitt Club is one of those places where the “upper-class” Briton loved and still enjoys cultivating interpersonal skills.

On its website, the Pitt Club makes little secret of its financial concerns: “The last few months have been difficult for the financial health of the club, with an immediate and recurring need for support”, can we read there. Spicy detail: at the end of the 1990s, the club, which was already going through a bad patch, had to rent the ground floor of 7a Jesus Lane (the neoclassical building it has occupied since the 1860s) to a PizzaExpress restaurant. But the fast food chain is doing very badly she too (she has placed herself in the safeguard procedure) and risks no longer paying her rent.

The Pitt Club, which counted Prince Charles among its members (and long before him, Kings Edward VII and George V), is one of those places where the upper-class Briton loved and still enjoys cultivating interpersonal skills. Its members are young people who are sure that their birth still gives them certain rights, including that of ruling the country. It was founded in 1835 in Cambridge, along with around 40 other clubs of the same name elsewhere in the United Kingdom, to bring to life the memory of William Pitt the Younger, who became the youngest British prime minister of the history of the country (in 1783, at only 24 years old).

Recreational and dining place

Considered a great Tory (member of the Conservative Party), William Pitt the Younger resolutely defended the British parliamentary monarchy at the time when France was making its Revolution. The Cambridge branch quickly abandoned its initial political vocation to become a recreational and dining place, towards which the undergraduates (“Undergraduates”) fresh out of the top boys’ colleges (Harrow and Eton).

You have 55.92% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here