Nobody's Friends

The Club of Nobody's Friends is a private dining club with origins in the High Church tradition of the Church of England. It is one of the oldest of the London dining clubs and frequently meets in Lambeth Palace. It's motto is Pro Ecclesia et Rege.[1][2][3]

History

The club, often referred to simply as Nobody's Friends or Nobody's, was founded in honour of William Stevens and first met on 21st June 1800 at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand. Its inaugural dinner consisted of thirteen men who would later form the movement known as the Hackney Phalanx.[4]

1891 menu

Stevens was a wealthy hosier who became a writer and philanthropist, leading figure in the High Church movement, and Treasurer of Queen Anne's Bounty. He wrote theological pamphlets under the nom de plume of Nobody which gave the club its curious name.[5][6][7]

The club grew to consist of 50 members, half clergymen and half laymen, and met three times a year. Between 1800 and 1900 membership included three archbishops, forty-nine bishops, twenty Cathedral deans, many peers and baronets, and members of the House of Commons. It also included privy councillors, judges, and fellows of both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries.[8][9]

A Nobody's menu from the late 1800s shows a club dinner consisting of ten or more courses, standard at that time in formal Victorian dining.[10] It may be assumed that presentation of the courses was in the Service à la russe tradition.

Recent times

It is recorded that in 1962 a former bishop of Norwich left Nobody’s the “worse for wear” and was later found by friends singing "I’m a space Bishop" whilst wearing a motorbike helmet he had acquired on the journey home. The story may be apocryphal, but it is said that he met his future wife amongst the friends who discovered him in this state.[11]

Writing in his diaries The Old Boys Network, John Rae the celebrated headmaster of Westminster School said of a 1984 dinner:

The dinner is good and I enjoy the company of the Archbishop of Canterbury sitting beside me, but I can’t think why I joined except that Edward Carpenter and Burke Trend are both members. After dinner, we discuss the admission of women to membership and some very odd backwoodsman’s views are expressed, notably by three former headmasters – Frank Fisher, Tom Howarth and Oliver van Oss. The latter is particularly pompous, reducing the discussion to farce, an old trick that headmasters use when faced with pupils or masters demanding change. I say a few words in favour of admitting women but it is decided that there will be a postal vote and I guess the backwoodsmen will carry the day. In the obscurity of the closet, the bishops and deans will vote for the cosy status quo.[12]

It is believed that women have since been admitted as members, but this is not known for definite.

In 2005, Conservative peer Lord Brooke speaking in the House of Lords on the death of Lord Belstead said

He was a member of "Nobody's Friends"—a body which dines in Lambeth Palace, half of whom are lay people and half of whom are ecclesiastical. I will not explain why what I am about to say happens, but the group is called "Nobody's Friends" because people who are elected to it have to make a seven-minute speech to explain why they are nobody's friend. It will not surprise your Lordships' House that John Belstead did that particularly well.[13]

In 2014 the retired bishop of Bath and Wells, Rt Revd John Bickersteth, when asked how he had become a bishop described how after being 'spotted' at Nobody's

You used to have lunch at the Athenaeum.

though he recalled that in his case, the luncheon which led to episcopal elevation took place at the Commonwealth Club[14]

IICSA

In 2018 the club was subject of a question in the IICSA hearing into abuse in the Church of England. Lord Lloyd had sent a letter of influence in the Peter Ball case to Archbishop Carey prefaced with the phrase

May I presume on a brief acquaintanceship at dinners of Nobody's Friends?

When asked about the club in his evidence to the Inquiry, Lord Lloyd described Nobody's Friends as

simply a club, half consisting of the clergy, members of the clergy, and half consisting of members of the laity, which dine together probably twice a year, very often in Lambeth Palace.

The IICSA counsel pointed out that the Daily Mail had once described it as

centred on a strong core of bishops, ex-Tory ministers and former military top brass, a highly secretive, all-male group representing Britain's most entrenched professions and institutions.

to which Lord Lloyd rejoined:

That's a typical Daily Mail description of something they don't particularly like, but I can assure you that Nobody's Friends is a perfectly ordinary dining club...

The same article that IICSA counsel drew upon in the hearing indicated that Prime Minister Tony Blair had been keen to join the club in 2003.[15][16][17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon (2011). Saints and Sanctity (Studies in Church History). Ecclesiastical History Society. p. 316. ISBN 978-0954680985. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  2. ↑ Strong (Editor), Rowan. The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume III: Partisan Anglicanism and its Global Expansion 1829-c. 1914. Oxford University Press. p. 144. ISBN 978-0199699704. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  3. ↑ Park, Sir James Allan (1814). Memoirs of William Stevens, Esq. Treasurer of Queen Anne's Bounty. Philanthropic Society. p. 115. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  4. ↑ Podmore, Colin (2005). Aspects of Anglican Identity. Church House Publishing. p. 10. ISBN 978-0715140741. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  5. ↑ Winn, Christopher (2008). I Never Knew That About the English. Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0091926731. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  6. ↑ Andrews, Robert (2015). Lay Activism and the High Church Movement of the Late Eighteenth Century, The Life and Thought of William Stevens, 1732–1807. Brill, Boston/Leiden. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  7. ↑ Varley, E.A. (1992). The Last of the Prince Bishops: William Van Mildert and the High Church Movement of the Early Nineteenth Century. Cambridge University Press. p. 32. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  8. ↑ Lubenow, William (2010). Liberal Intellectuals and Public Culture in Modern Britain, 1815-1914. The Boydell Press. p. 97. ISBN 978 1 84383559 2. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  9. ↑ Cokayne, George. The Club of Nobody's Friends. Nobody's Friends - Printed for Private Circulation. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  10. ↑ "DINNER [held by] NOBODY'S FRIENDS [at] "WHITEHALL ROOMS, THE HOTEL METROPOLE, LONDON, [ENGLAND]" (FOREIGN HOTEL) - PICRYL". 1 January 1891.
  11. ↑ Butler-Gallie, The Revd Fergus (2018). A Field Guide to the English Clergy: A Compendium of Diverse Eccentrics, Pirates, Prelates and Adventurers; All Anglican, Some Even Practising. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 978-1786074416. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  12. ↑ Rae, John. The Old Boys' Network: A Headmaster’s Diaries 1970-1986. Short Books. ISBN 978-1-906021-63-4. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
  13. ↑ "House of Lords. Tributes to the late Lord Belstead". Lords Hansard. 5 December 2005. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  14. ↑ "Guns, gays and the Queen - a former bishop reminisces". The Spectator. 3 May 2014. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  15. ↑ "IICSA Inquiry Anglican Church Investigation Hearing Day 5" (PDF). IICSA. p. 13. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  16. ↑ "Religious power and privilege failed the victims in the Peter Ball affair". National Secular Society. 11 August 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
  17. ↑ "Cool Britannia gives way to a fusty old club". Daily Mail. 10 August 2003. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
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