A Brief History of The Bullingdon Club.
Founded in 1780, ostensibly for Cricket and Racing, the Bullingdon Club today is almost a pun on the behaviour of its members. The modern press have been fascinated by the behaviour of the establishment's finishing club, given the prominence of its former members in contemporary politics. Buller is, and has always been, the preserve of the elite, almost exclusively Tory and exclusively male. The club was satirised by Waugh in Decline and Fall as the Bollinger Club and in Brideshead Revisited, Waugh describes the members as, "like a lot of most disorderly footmen".
Whilst the early years of the club are nondescript (despite lurid stories of reptiles and Rothschilds on the internet), the first name clearly associated with Buller was Thomas Assheton Smith II. Eton educated, followed by Oxford, a Tory MP and Master of the Hunt. His career reads like a checklist of the establishment; the career path of a Tory statesman. To be fair to Smith, he was also a renowned cricketer in the early flourishing of the sport, described as “being a good hard hitter”. Smith, however, provides us with the archetypal Buller and an image that has persisted to the present day.
The most prominent former Buller of the Victorian Age is Cecil Rhodes, whose bloodsoaked career in Africa bears mentioning. Founder of De Beers Diamond Company and a freemason, Rhodes sexuality and celibacy has been the cause of some discussion, whilst his rampant imperialism caused the Second Boer War, conflicts with the Portuguese, as well as brutal repression of the native population. Rhodes, unusually for a Buller and in spite of his radical imperialism, was a Liberal and supporter of Irish Home Rule donating vast sums to Parnell's Nationalist cause. Along with Rhodes is Lord Randolph Churchill, father to Winston, and the first Bullingdon Chancellor. Churchill was the scourge of his own party's front bench, and leader of a splinter group in the 1870s. He was a founder of the conservative Primrose League and darling of progressive Toryism. However, his resignation as chancellor after less than 4 months was political suicide and his career was finished. The film "Young Winston" depicts a scene where Winston was taunted by the resignation at school.
By the mid nineteenth century, the Bullingdon Club's early focus on cricket had gradually been discarded in favour of the more raucous behaviour that the club has become renowned for. As Wisden the cricket guide describes: “ostensibly one of the two original Oxford University cricket teams, but it actually used cricket merely as a respectable front for the mischievous, destructive or self-indulgent tendencies of its members.” By 1875, the "London Society" a magazine aimed at the “quality,” said of the Bullingdon Club that "cricket there was secondary to the dinners, and the men were chiefly of an expensive class." It is a reputation that has persisted and grown as its members have risen to hold the great offices of state, become crowned heads, spies, and television interviewers. Things were to go from bad to worse. In May 1894, Bullingdon members smashed the glass of the lights and windows in Peckwater Quad of Christ Church. As a result, the Club was banned from meeting within 15 miles of Oxford. Hardly Chariots of Fire, but a feat that would be repeated again in 1927. Such was the reputation of the Bullingdon Club by 1913, that Queen Mary initially refused the Prince of Wales permission to join. Perhaps, given his grandfather Edward VII' reputation as a drunk and a womaniser as well as Bullingdon Club member, it would have been better for the Queen not to have relented. However, the future Edward VIII did become a member of the club, in spite of the Royal Families reservations, on the promise that he would refrain from the more outrageous activities. Unsurprisingly, given his later career, the Prince of Wales demonstrated the same lack of caution he would display during his relationship with Wallis Simpson. When word of his attendance at one of the infamous dinners reached the Queen, he received a snippy telegram ordering him to remove his name from the club's membership list. Edward was consoled with a brand new car as a gift from his father. The New York Times covered the story extensively feeding the American fascination with the Young Prince of Wales, and described the club as:
“For the Bullingdon club represents the acme of exclusiveness at Oxford. It is the club of the sons of Nobility, the sons of great wealth; Its membership represents the “young bloods” of the University.” The behaviour of the club was already legendary. After the Duke of Marlborough’s wedding, the Dean of Christ Church broke up a Bullingdon soiree. The next morning Oxford awoke to the words “God Bless the Duke of Marlborough; Fuck the Dean of Christ Church,” Daubed on the College Buildings. This, and antics like kidnapping a deer and driving it up Oxford High Street, led to a strained relationship with University authorities. John Betjeman would claim in 1938 that the club was suspended for a couple of years after every meeting, which is an exaggeration, but there have certainly been many occasions when the club's official activities have been suspended. In 1916 former Bullers found themselves embroiled in the events of the Great War, but it was not in the trenches that the Bullingdon Club would make its greatest contribution to the History of World War One, and perhaps change the course of global history. Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov, a former Bullingdon member, conspired with Oxford friend and British Agent Oswald Rayner in the murder of the Mad Monk Rasputin. It is alleged that Yusupoff, openly bisexual and lover of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, conceived the idea of the murder to further Dmitri's Imperial ambitions. The tragic irony of the assassination was its role in sparking the abdication crisis and March Revolution in 1917, rather than reinvigorating a royal family paralysed by Nicholas II incompetence.
Oswald Rayner's role in the assassination was initially kept secret and he burned his papers before his death. He did, however, confess to his cousin that he was present at the murder, and modern research both into the autopsy and Rayner's role confirm that his Webley revolver fired the final fatal shot. Since Ed Miliband's implied taunt that David Cameron couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery at prime minister's questions, a few details of the assassination are worth recounting. They are perhaps indicative of a weakness in organisation that is still very apparent in our Bullingdon leaders today. First, Rasputin was served cyanide (probably procured by the British Secret Service) in wine and cakes that had no effect. Yusupoff then shot him, failing to kill him. He was shot again by one of the other conspirators, again failing to kill him. He was then beaten and a final shot to the head, before being dumped in the icy river. Not only did the body not float out to sea as hoped by Yusupoff, Rayner and friends, but a modern review of the autopsy concluded that he was still alive when they threw him in the icy waters. Rasputin’s messy death was not due to supernatural powers, but to more earthly Bullingdon Bungling. What the world would have been like without the assassination begs questioning: Kerensky, Lenin, Trotsky, the history of 1917, the USSR, and twentieth century could have been very different. Yusupoff was quickly defended in the western press, although an article in the New York Times by another “Oxford Friend” describing his flamboyant ways, “hasheesh” habit and secret weekends away to Brighton might seem a curious defence to modern ears. When the revolution struck in 1917, Yusupoff was able to escape with much of his moveable wealth, including a number of Rembrandts, on a British Warship. Bullers influence in the trenches of the first world war was just as controversial. Douglas Haig, Commander of the British forces on the Western Front was also a former Bullingdon member. Haig's tactics of attrition, and his responsibility for the disaster of the first day of the Somme, has been much criticised. Even so, the dour Scot does not fit into the usual Bullingdon model. A reserved drinker himself, he once left Prime Minister Asquith (a well known soak) gasping for extra brandy at dinner, but too afraid to ask for it. Haig contemptuously dismissed a prime minister without the strength of character to ask for his own drink. His military reputation has also been rehabilitated somewhat, and the success of 1918 rightly applauded. The interwar years of the bright young people continued the hedonism of the Bullingdon club, even as they became the victims of Evelyn Waugh's vicious parody. The smashing of windows at Bullingdon meets was by now inevitable, as Betjeman wrote in his Varsity Rag:
"It was almost like the Bullingdon as we bayed for broken glass, For the rioting student nowadays is a better sort of class." Some notable members of the club in the interwar years were Lord Longford who initially followed the Tory career path, before defecting to Labour and later championing prisoners rights. Often lampooned for supporting the release of Moors murderer Myra Hindley, and his opposition to Gay rights, whilst traipsing around sex clubs studying the effects of pornography. Another was the future Minister for War John Profumo, whose affair with Christine Keeler, along with wild sex parties at the Astor residence, brought down the Tory government in 1963. Profumo was forced to resign after misleading Parliament and disgraced. The scandal enveloped the establishment, and the death of osteopath Stephen Ward during his trial for living off immoral earnings exposed the upper classes to ridicule and criticism. This was summed up by the open laughter in court that accompanied Mandy Rice Davies quip, when confronted with Lord Astor’s denial of sexual proclivity, “well he would wouldn't he”. Deference and respect for the old elites would never be the same again as the establishment were pilloried on TW3 which beamed its establishment contempt into millions of homes on their new TVs.
It is perhaps then unsurprising that Bullingdon soon contained aristocracy of the new media television. David Dimbleby's membership of the Bullingdon Club whilst at Oxford is rarely mentioned but worth remembering next time you see him give a Tory an easy ride on Question Time, or even at Prime Ministerial debates for television. Dimbleby, whose father was perhaps the greatest broadcaster in the early years of the BBC, was the ideal recruit as the new media age of the 60s took off. Today, Bullingdon continues to have a reputation for public school buffoonery and establishment elite. The Prime Minister, the Mayor of London, The Chancellor are all ex Bullers, whose membership and antics during the eighties were exposed with Cameron and Johnson's growing political prominience. One night in particular became infamous when satirised in the programme "When Boris met Dave." The night itself became the subject of much controversy, but John Packard of the FT recounted the actual story. “The evening had ended with a pot being sent crashing through a restaurant window – sending some of the revellers, including Johnson, the future mayor of London, scurrying for safety while their less fortunate friends earned themselves a night in the cells at Cowley police station. " Many details of the evening have been kept a closely-guarded secret by the group of old friends, who have remained tight-lipped about Cameron’s involvement in the escapade. But one former Bullingdon member recalled how the arrests took place in Oxford’s botanical gardens where – silhouetted by the lights of the police cars – the students, who had been hiding on the ground, stood up one by one.
At that point, however, Cameron had sprinted off down a side street towards John Lane to make good his escape. According to the former Buller, the idea that the future Tory leader was not part of the original escapade was "ludicrous.” The club continues to operate, In 2008 members were threatened with an ASBO for drunken behaviour, and the tradition of restaurant smashing has continued. Its history shows us that one time vandals burning £50 notes in front of tramps grow up to be in positions of power and authority. Next time you hear a press report of Bullingdon excess in Oxford, ask yourself what that boy will be doing in twenty years time. Worrying isn't it?
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