The July 1906 Pilgrimage to Tennyson country was one of the most anticipated events of the year.
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In 1897, the twenty-five-year American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar travelled to England for a literary tour. He recited his works on the London circuit – and, what was not known before, visited the Whitefriars Club.
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G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was a celebrated writer and literary critic, best remembered today for his novel The Man Who Was Thursday.
He spoke at the Whitefriars Club on 6th November 1903 on the subject of ‘The Old Journalist and the New’. He also attended several times as a guest (20th March, 23rd October and 6th November 1903, 18th January 1907, 3rd April 1908, 17th December 1909, 2nd May 1924 and 15th December 1927), often contributing to the discussion.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) was an American humorist, satirist, social critic, lecturer and novelist. He is mostly remembered for his classic novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
He spoke at the Whitefriars Club on 6th September 1872 and 16th June 1899. He also attended and spoke on 5th October 1900, when Winston Churchill was the club’s guest speaker and talked about his career as a war correspondent.
Friar Sir Sidney Low (1857–1932) was educated at King’s College School, London and the University of Oxford, where he read Modern History. He was initially an undergraduate at Pembroke College, and then he moved to Balliol, where he was awarded a Brakenby Scholarship. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1892.
He was the editor of the St. James’s Gazette from 1888 to 1897, and was a leader writer and literary editor for the Standard. During the First World War he was a journalist in France and Italy, and edited the wireless service of the Ministry of Information. He was knighted in 1918.
He met with Oscar Wilde in the Whitefriars Club rooms at Anderton’s Hotel to talk about Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Famed for his brilliant wit, Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was a prolific writer and one of the most successful playwrights of Victorian Britain, as well as a champion for the values of Aestheticism.
He visited the Whitefriars Club rooms at Anderton’s Hotel in July 1890 to meet with Friar Sidney Low and talk about his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) is the celebrated author of many adventure novels, including The Lost World and The Poison Belt, and the creator of the hugely popular detective stories of Sherlock Holmes.
He spoke at the Whitefriars Club on 11th January 1901 on ‘The Art of Fiction’
He was a guest of the club on 22nd February 1907 (Annual Dinner at the Trocadero) and 13th December 1907 (Christmas Dinner at the Trocadero).