This is a selection of articles and reports from our club’s archive. If you are a member, you can also read and download all the past issues of the Whitefriars Journal (for the years 1900–23) and The Whitefriar (2001 onwards) and browse all past events from our inaugural dinner in February 1868.

ARTEMAS AGLEN DOWTY (1846–1906)

Artemas Aglen Dowty was born in Bridgwater in 1846. He was a son of Flixton Dowty (1812–75), printer and bookseller, and educated at Wesley’s College, Taunton (now Queen’s College). When he was aged fifteen, he had a severe accident while ice-skating, …

From the Sketch, 1st May 1895

Patronymics are not always appropriate. The White Friars have outgrown their early patronymic. They were christened “Whitefriars” for the simple and prosaic reason that they first saw the light as a corporate body in Whitefriars Street; but long before …

The John Calder Translation Prize

The Whitefriars Club, in association with the Society of Authors, is delighted to announce the launch of the John Calder Translation Prize, an annual award for translations into English of full-length ambitious, groundbreaking works of literary merit a …

The Whitefriars’ Struggle over Women

Our Club has not always been the haven of goodwill and equality that it now is. This became evident during our Pilgrimage (September 2023) to Reading to visit the Club’s extensive archives. A number of papers were available to peruse and, amongst them, …

The Club’s Glass Goblet

The club’s glass goblet, cracked and rather fragile, lies safely within the club ’s archive, held at Reading University.  The goblet itself is engraved as follows: “Presented by Tom Barry to his old friend and master W. Batty”. An inscription on the wo …

Winston Churchill, White Friar

(From Friar Sir John Hammerton’s Other Things than War, London: Macdonald, 1943, pp. 17–22), extracted by Friar Colin Smythe On the north side of Fleet Street just now there is a gaping space that was not made by German bombs. It is the site of the And …