In July 1890, Oscar Wilde called at the Whitefriars Club’s rooms at Anderton’s Hotel and had a long talk about Dorian Gray with Friar Sidney Low, then editor of the St James’s Gazette.
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On 16th June 1899, more than twenty-five years from his first visit, the celebrated humorist Mark Twain returned to the Whitefriars Club.
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According to the club’s records, there are eleven people who have spoken to the club more than once.
The full list is:
G.K. Chesterton: six times (6th November 1903, 18th January 1907, 3rd April 1908, 17th December 1909, 2nd May 1924, 15th December 1927)
Augustine Birrell: five times (16th February 1901, 25th April 1902, 27th January 1905, 5th December 1917, 14th December 1923)
Sir Henry Newbolt: three times (1st May 1903, 26th February 1904, 10th March 1905)
Robert Hardy: three times (17th October 1985, 29th June 1995, 15th May 2007)
H.G. Wells: twice (31st January 1902, 17th March 1905)
George Bernard Shaw: twice (16th February 1906, 29th October 1920)
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch – “Q”: twice (8th April 1904, 7th March 1913)
Ann Widdecombe: twice (24th October 2006, 21st October 2015)
Mark Twain: twice (6th September 1872, 16th June 1899)
Joseph Hodges Choate: twice (3rd November 1899, 1st May 1903)
Hilaire Belloc: twice (20th March 1903, 30th April 1909)
