Prince Philip would have ‘a bit of fun away from his serious life at Buckingham Palace’ in the 1950s – by attending weekly gatherings where he reportedly enjoyed the likes of foie gras, an ‘endless supply of wine’ and the ‘best cigars.’
The Duke of Edinburgh, who died on Friday 9 April, was a regular at Thursday Club – a men’s eating and drinking group dedicated to ‘Absolute Inconsequence’ – where members would mostly meet for lunch at Wheeler’s fish restaurant on Old Compton Street in Soho every week.
Among several traditions established by members – which is thought to have included actors David Niven and Peter Ustinov – was one in which a speaker would remove his trousers to keep the attention of a yawning audience.
The group of bon viveurs would reportedly consume copious quantities of alcohol and dine on the likes of ‘foie gras, turtle soup, mixed grill and crepes suzette.’
In 1996, late journalist Miles Kington wrote in the Independent: ‘I think I am probably one of the last surviving members of the old Thursday Club, the gang of cronies that the Duke of Edinburgh used to gather round him in the 1950s to have a bit of fun away from his serious life at Buckingham Palace.’
The Duke of Edinburgh, who died on Friday 9 April, was a regular at Thursday Club. Prince Philip on the evening of his wedding with his Naval colleagues. Pictured, the Duke of Edinburgh sharing a laugh with his uncle Earl Mountbatten on his stag do in November 1947
The Thursday club – a men’s eating and drinking group dedicated to ‘Absolute Inconsequence’ – mostly met for lunch at Wheeler’s fish restaurant in Soho every week. Pictured, the oyster bar on Old Compton Street, London, 1981
One surviving photo dating back to November 1947 shows Prince Philip on one of his last nights as a bachelor – six days before he is due to marry Queen Elizabeth – as the duke and The Thursday Club can be seen gathering at the Belfry Club in Belgravia, central London, for his stag night.
The £11-a-week Naval officer appears to be in his element with an eclectic group of 24 artists, actors, restaurateurs and newspapermen.
The black and white photograph reveals a seating plan and menu illustrated by one of the stags, Feliks Topolski.
In honour of Philip’s Naval career, it was headed ‘Dinner to Distant Country Member Lieut. Philip Mountbatten, Royal Navy, who is to be married on 20th November 1947’.
High-ranking member of British intelligence and double agent Kim Philby (1912 – 1988) pictured while being interviewed by Daily Express correspondent Roy Blackman, UK, 15th November 1967
Kington claimed that even the Kray twins would reportedly sometimes show up to The Thursday Club. Pictured, notorious London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray circa 1965
On the menu was also printed a verse by Dr Samuel Johnson which read: ‘Marriage is the best state for a man in general; and every man is a worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the married state…’
According to Kington, the club would meet on a separate floor in the restaurant, away from the viewing eye of the general public.
He reported there would be 10 to 15 members in attendance on an average night, including: Prince Philip’s cousin – Marquess of Milford Haven, Prince Philip’s uncle – Lord Louis Mountbatten, photographer Cecil Beaton, and poet John Betjemen.
Also reportedly joining the gatherings was Hungarian author Arthur Koestler, Daily Express editor Arthur Christiansen; Larry Adler – would ‘play his mouth organ in the corner’ – as well as the (yet to be exposed) Soviet spy Kim Philby.
Kington claimed that even the Kray twins would reportedly sometimes show up.
The men who made up the Thursday Club and attended Prince Philip’s stag do:
BY CHRISTOPHER WILSON FOR THE DAILY MAIL
1. David, MARQUESS OF MILFORD HAVEN (1919-70)
Philip’s first cousin and best man. Both served in the Navy and, as bachelors after the war, drove around London in an open-top sports car, carousing to dawn.
But, while Philip buckled down to work after marriage, Milford Haven continued partying.
He married twice, first to American divorcee Romaine Dahlgren Pierce, then to model Janet Mercedes Bryce.
By the mid-1950s, he was hosting sex parties at his Grosvenor Square flat for carefully chosen male guests.
Evenings began with card games called ‘Chase The Bitch’ and ‘Find The Lady’. Winners paired off with the women for sex in the luxury bedrooms.
He drifted apart from Philip soon after the Royal Wedding and died of a heart attack aged 50.
David Mountbatten, 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven (1919 – 1970) at the Dorchester hotel for a Foyles literary luncheon, London, 19th June 1959
2. MICHAEL EDDOWES (1903-92)
Lawyer, author and restaurateur. Fascinated by the case of Timothy Evans, hanged in 1950 for the murder of his daughter. He published The Man On Your Conscience, an investigation into the story of the infamous murder at 10 Rillington Place in London.
He argued that the real culprit was serial killer John Christie and his book was partly responsible for Evans receiving a posthumous pardon by the Queen.
The case played a key role in the subsequent abolition of capital punishment in Britain.
Deeply involved in the Sixties Profumo scandal, in which Secretary of State for War John Profumo resigned when it emerged that a call girl he had been seeing, Christine Keeler, was also sleeping with a Soviet naval attache.
The man at the heart of the scandal, society osteopath and pimp Stephen Ward, had also introduced Eddowes to Keeler in 1962, and he fell in love with her.
As Keeler later revealed: ‘I kept my date with Michael Eddowes, but he was far too old for me. He was nearly 60, but he certainly was interested and wanted to set me up in a flat in Regent’s Park.’
After two of her other lovers got in trouble with the law, she sought legal advice from Eddowes.
And pursuing a second ‘miscarriage’ of justice, he wrote The Oswald File, arguing that a Soviet agent impersonating Lee Harvey Oswald was the real assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
He also claimed that Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, covered up the involvement of the KGB so as to prevent a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
To test his theory, Eddowes brought a legal suit to exhume the body of Oswald’s supposed ‘impersonator’ — which took place in Texas in 1981. Dental records proved Eddowes wrong . . . it was actually Oswald. Having retired as a lawyer, Eddowes ran the Bistro Vino restaurant chain.
Thrice-married, his son said he ‘was active until nearly the end, fishing and writing’. Died aged 90 in a retirement home near Bognor Regis, West Sussex.
3. SEAN FIELDING (1908-63)
Anglo-Irish journalist. While serving as a colonel in the Western Desert during the war, conceived and set up Soldier magazine, which remains the Army’s official monthly publication.
The first edition was printed in Brussels in 1945 and a reporter from the magazine visited Belsen concentration camp.
In 1946, Fielding helped the photographer Baron Nahum — a friend of Lord Mounbatten (and who took the stag night picture) — to found the Thursday Club.
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Witty and stylish, Fielding was described as a ‘terrific snob’ by novelist Margery Allingham, one of the four great ‘Queens of Crime’. Editor of Tatler (1946-54), he later worked for the Daily Express.
Final years spent in Canterbury.
Princess Elizabeth (future Queen Elizabeth II) and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh pose on their wedding day at Buckingham Palace in London on November 20, 1947
4. ARTHUR CHRISTIANSEN (1904-63)
Legendary editor from 1933 to ’57 of the Daily Express, once the world’s biggest-selling newspaper — with sales peaking at more than four million in 1949.
The son of a shipbuilder, at 16 he started at the Wallasey and Wirral Chronicle before being hired by Press baron Lord Beaverbrook. Famous for exhorting his staff: ‘Always, always tell the news through people.’
Known by fellow Thursday Clubbers for drinking champagne out of his own shoe.
Philip condemned the Express as ‘that bloody paper!’ in 1956 after reports of tension in his marriage, with him on a world tour aboard Royal Yacht Britannia and said to be accompanied by several women.
Christiansen’s memoirs, Headlines All My Life, have been loved by generations of journalists. Died at 59 in a Norwich TV studio.
5. BERNARD WALSH (1901-81)
Proprietor of Wheeler’s restaurant, Soho, where the Thursday Club usually met. Began work as a dancer before selling oysters in Whitstable, Kent, then opening an oyster shop in London frequented by intellectuals such as painters Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon (and Walt Disney).
It became Wheeler’s and thrived because oysters escaped post-war rationing. Donald Maclean, one of the ‘Atom spies’, ate his last lunch there before fleeing for Moscow with fellow traitor Guy Burgess.
6. BOBBY St JOHN COOPER (1905-84)
Artist, designer and writer. As a war correspondent, sent home ‘Young Bert’ cartoons from France which inspired the song We’re Going To Hang Out The Washing On The Siegfried Line, a reference to Hitler’s military fortification.
After the war, became a commercial artist and created the Mr Cube character for a Tate and Lyle sugar advert.
It was used in the firm’s campaign against the Labour government’s plan in 1949 to nationalise the sugar industry.
Pictured, actor David Niven relaxes in his London hotel suite. 3rd March 1965
7. ANTHONY DAWSON (1916-92)
Scottish actor, known for playing villains — in Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder, and several 007 film roles (Professor Dent in Dr No and Blofeld in From Russia With Love and Thunderball). Died of cancer aged 75 in Sussex.
8. MATTHEW ‘Matt’ HALTON (1904-56)
Canadian journalist. Became a correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in World War II, reporting from the D-Day beaches. He later hosted coverage of the Coronation. His daughter married critic Kenneth Tynan. Died aged 52 in London.
9. JACK BROOME DSC (1901-85)
Distinguished sailor who served in the Royal Navy during both World Wars. On his retirement in 1947, became a magazine editor, film director, writer and illustrator. Editor of Sketch magazine and author of five naval books.
In 1968, won libel damages (which he gave to charity) from Holocaust denier David Irving, who claimed Broome had made a fatal decision while in charge of the ill-fated Allied convoy PQ-17 in the Arctic.
Twice-married. Spent his final years in a cottage near Henley-on-Thames and died aged 84.
10. GUY MIDDLETON (1907-73)
Jaunty actor with military-style moustache who specialised in playing cads. Born in Hove, East Sussex, he first worked at the London Stock Exchange before switching to acting.
Roles in the George Formby musical comedy Keep Fit (1937), The Belles Of St Trinian’s, Goodbye Mr Chips and the anti-war drama Oh! What A Lovely War (1969). TV appearances in Dixon Of Dock Green and Hancock’s Half Hour.
Had an affair with the wife of fellow actor Rex Harrison. Died, aged 66, in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire.
11. MICHAEL TRUBSHAWE (1905-85)
Actor and former officer in the Highland Light Infantry born in Chichester, West Sussex.
Best man for David Niven for the actor’s two weddings. His many film appearances included The Lavender Hill Mob, The Guns Of Navarone and The Pink Panther. Twice-married, he died aged 79 in Sussex.
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Speaking to The Sun, a royal source claimed: ‘An endless supply of wine, followed by port and brandy, plus the best cigars, ensured that lunch went on well into the night, with the bibulous guests becoming more louche – and increasingly frisky – as the hours went by.’
They went on to claim that Prince Philip’s friend and society photographer Baron Nahum was the one to first introduce the monarch to the club after meeting him on a photoshoot at Broadlands – the Hampshire home of Philip’s uncle, Lord Mountbatten.
Earl Mountbatten (1900 – 1979) attends the preview of a television series at the Imperial War Museum in London on 19th December 1968
April 1958: US harmonica player Larry Adler (1914 – 2001) at his house in Saint John’s Wood, London
The source added: ‘Baron founded the Thursday Club and often hosted parties in his Mayfair flat, where blue-bloods met showgirls, and introduced Philip to this bohemian circle.’
The latest series of hit Netflix drama The Crown heavily implies the prince was unfaithful; before Philip departs for a tour of the Commonwealth with his male entourage (described as a ‘five-month stag do’), the Queen is seen finding a photograph of ballerina Galina Ulanova in his briefcase.
Viewers then watch Elizabeth torturing herself by attending a Bolshoi ballet to see her perform.
During the tour the Duke dances with a new woman in every port and enjoys drinking games and banter with his chums – fellow members of the Thursday Club held at a restaurant in Soho, where more debauchery takes place.
In a recent obituary published on The Times, Max Hastings, who claimed he was the ‘last person left alive who once attended a Thursday Club meeting’ admitted that the ‘alcohol consumed would have floated a frigate.’
However, he disregarded any suggestion that ladies would attend.
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