Fox once played cards with Fitzpatrick at Brooks’s from ten o’clock at night till near six o’clock the next morning, a waiter standing by to tell them “whose deal it was,” they being too sleepy to know.
The precise circumstances which led to the foundation of the Fox Club are rather obscure, the first recorded dinner having taken place in February 1829, when twenty-three members were present, though “Fox Dinners” seem to have been held previous to that date.
Until 1843 the Fox Club met at the Clarendon, but in that year, on an application signed by sixteen members of the Fox Club, a rule was passed granting permission to that body to use the great room at Brooks’s for their meetings. Of these, the first always takes place on the Thursday following the meeting of Parliament, the second and third as may be fixed by the club in the course of the session, and the fourth at Greenwich in July.
No speeches are allowed, and only the four following toasts are given, without “note or comment”:
This third toast was added by unanimous resolution on April 24, 1841, and on June 5 following, on motion previously given by Sir Robert Adair and Mr. Clive, £200 were voted from the funds of the club towards the monument proposed to be erected to his memory, now just inside the railings of Holland House, on the Hammersmith Road.
On the pedestal of the monument in question are inscribed the following lines:
“Nephew of Fox, and friend of Grey, Be this my highest fame: That those who know me best will say, ‘He tarnished neither name.’”
4. “To the memory of Lord John Russell”—added on June 22, 1878, on the motion of Mr. Grenville Berkeley. As originally proposed, the toast was to the memory of “Earl Russell,” but at the next meeting it was unanimously carried that the style by which he had been best known should be adopted. This was done with the full approval of Lady Russell, whose wishes in the matter had been consulted.
Before leaving the clubs of St. James’s Street, two quaintly-named institutions—the Thatched House and the Cocoa-tree—claim some attention. The latter club-house is remarkable for the golden tree which, spreading through two floors, is visible from the street.
The Cocoa-tree Club originated from the Tory chocolate-house of the same name which flourished in the days of Queen Anne. This was converted into a club, probably before 1746, when the house was the headquarters of the Jacobite party in Parliament. It is thus referred to in the above year by Horace Walpole, in a letter to George Montagu: “The Duke has given Brigadier Mordaunt the Pretender’s coach, on condition he rode up to London in it. ‘That I will, sir,’ said he, ‘and drive till it stops of its own accord at the Cocoa-tree.’”