Club
an association or number of persons combined for the promotion of some common object, whether political, social, or otherwise. The earliest London Club of any celebrity was established about the beginning of the 17th century, at the Mermaid Tavern, Friday street. .
Among its members were Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Selden. Ben Jonson figured at another club, which met at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar. Of other Clubs, the literary one, established in the year 1764, had among its members Johnson, Boswell, Burke, and Goldsmith . Toward the close of the 18th century, the French political Clubs gained worldwide notoriety from the active part which they took in the first French revolution.
The most celebrated was the Jacobin again in 1849 and Club, founded at Versailles in 1789, and called originally the Breton Club. This and other political French Clubs were abolished on Sept. 4, 1797. They were revived in 1848, but were suppressed Well-appointed Clubs for men, in the English style have been established in all the leading cities of the United States, and within recent years Clubs exclusively for women have become numerous and popular.