Pilgrims Society
The Pilgrims Society, founded on 16 July 1902 by Sir Harry Brittain, is a British-American society established, in the words of American diplomat Joseph Choate, 'to promote good-will, good-fellowship, and everlasting peace between the United States and Great Britain'.
Membership
Over the years it has boasted an elite membership of politicians, diplomats, businessmen, and writers who have included Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher, Caspar Weinberger, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Henry Luce, Lord Carrington, Alexander Haig, Paul Volcker, Thomas Kean, George Shultz, and Walter Cronkite among many others. Members of the immediate Royal Family, United States secretaries of state and United States ambassadors to the Court of St. James's are customarily admitted to membership in the Society.
Activities
The Society is notable for holding dinners to welcome into office each successive U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. The patron of the society is Queen Elizabeth II.
History
The first informal meeting of the Pilgrims of Great Britain included General Joseph Wheeler, Colonel (later General Sir) Bryan Mahon, the Hon Charles Rolls and Harry Brittain.
The first meeting of the Pilgrims of the United States was at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on 13 January 1903.
The Pilgrims of Great Britain and the Pilgrims of the United States have reciprocal membership.
Executive Committee members, as of 2017, are:
- Marshal of the Royal Air Force the Lord Stirrup KG GCB AFC (President)
- Mrs Diane Simpson (Chairman)
- Sir Stephen Wright KCMG (Honorary Secretary)
- Mr Richard Reid (Honorary Treasurer)
- Mr Abdul Bhanji
- Sir Peter Bottomley MP
- Mr Peter Cadbury
- Professor Stephen Challacombe
- Mr Piers Coleman
- Vice Admiral Sir Anthony Dymock KBE CB
- Mr Paul Dimond CMG
- Mr Tristan Elbrick
- Mrs Kweilen Hatleskog
- Mrs Valerie Humphrey
- Mr Lewis Lukens, Deputy Chief of Mission, American Embassy, London
- Sir David Newbigging OBE
- Sir Bryan Nicholson GBE
- Mr Mark Seligman
- Air Marshall Sir David Walker KCVO OBE
- Ms Xenia Wickett
Mrs Amy Thompson is the executive secretary, successor to Mrs Tessa Wells
Noteworthy members
- HM Queen Elizabeth II
- HRH Prince Philip
- HRH Prince Charles
- Nelson W. Aldrich
- Winthrop W. Aldrich
- John Nicholas Brown II
- Lord Carrington
- John W. Davis
- Charles G. Dawes
- Admiral William J. Crowe
- Chauncey Depew
- Allen W. Dulles
- John Foster Dulles
- Mark Fox
- General Alexander Haig
- Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax
- W. Averell Harriman
- Joseph P. Kennedy
- Henry R. Luce
- Sandra Day O'Connor
- Henry Kissinger
- Elliot Richardson
- General of the Army George C. Marshall
- Andrew W. Mellon
- John D. Rockefeller
- David Rockefeller
- Elihu Root
- Jacob Schiff
- John Hay Whitney
References
- "The Pilgrims". Retrieved 19 April 2013.
- Baker, Anne Pimlott (2002). The Pilgrims of Great Britain: A Centennial History. London: Profile Books. ISBN 1-86197-290-3.
- Baker, Anne Pimlott (2003). The Pilgrims of the United States: A Centennial History. London: Profile Books. ISBN 1-86197-726-3.