THE WYNDHAM CLUB
This Club, which partakes of the character of Arthur's and Boodle's, was founded by Lord Nugent, its object being, as stated in Rule 1, "to secure a convenient and agreeable place of meeting for a society of gentlemen, all connected with each other by a common bond of literary or personal acquaintance."
The Club, No. 11, St. James's-square, is named from the mansion having been the residence of William Wyndham, who has been described, and the description has been generally adopted as appropriate, as a model of the true English gentleman; and the fitness of the Club designation is equally characteristic. He was an accomplished scholar and mathematician. Dr. Johnson, writing of a visit which Wyndham paid him, says: "Such conversation I shall not have again till I come back to the regions of literature, and there Wyndham is 'inter stellas luna minores.'"
In the mansion also lived the accomplished John, Duke of Roxburghe; and here the Roxburghe Library was sold in 1812, the sale extending to forty-one days. Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough lived here in 1814; and subsequently, the Earl of Blessington, who possessed a fine collection of pictures.
John Timbs
Club Life of London Vol. I
London, 1866