William Cavendish 2nd Duke of Devonshire KG PC 1672 1729 British nobleman politician Whig Privy Council Lord President Council
This illustration is from the ‘Memoirs of The Celebrated Persons Composing the Kit-Cat Club 1821’ The Kit-Cat Club (sometimes Kit-Kat Club) was an early 18th century English club in London with strong political and literary associations, committed to the furtherance of Whig objectives, meeting at the Trumpet tavern in London, and at Water Oakley in the Berkshire countryside. The first meetings were held at a tavern in Shire Lane (parallel with Bell Yard and now covered by the Royal Courts of Justice) run by an innkeeper called Christopher Catling. He gave his name to the mutton pies known as 'Kit Kats' from which the name of the club is derived. The club later moved to the Fountain Tavern on The Strand (now the site of Simpson's-in-the-Strand), and latterly into a room especially built for the purpose at Barn Elms, the home of the secretary Jacob Tonson.[1] In summer the club met at the Upper Flask, Hampstead Heath. The name Kit-Cat Club is obscure in origin. In 1705 Thomas Hearne wrote: The Kit Cat Club got its Name from Christopher Catling. [Note, a Pudding Pye man.] Christopher is abbreviated as "Kit" and Catling as "Cat". Kit Catling was the keeper of a pie-house in Shire Lane, by Temple Bar, where the club originally met. On the other hand, one of his mutton pies known as a Kit-Kat, always formed a standing dish at meetings of the club and the pie is thus itself sometimes regarded ( by Addison in the Spectator) as the origin of the club's name. It is possible that the Club began at the end of the 17th century as the so-called Order of the Toast. Indeed, a famous characteristic of the Kit-Kat was its toasting-glasses, used for drinking the healths of the reigning beauties of the day, on which were engraved verses in their praise. If so, one can place the date before 1699, when Elkanah Settle wrote a poem "To the most renowned the President and the rest of the Knights of the most Noble Order of the Toast."
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Photo credit: © SOTK2011 / Alamy / Afripics
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