QUEEN OF CLUBS
Flapping Fast and loose
43 Gerrard Street
look for the plaque outside number 9 - here writer Samuel Johnson, who wrote the first dictionary, and painter Joshua Reynolds founded The Literary Club (1764). ‘The CLUB’ was a weekly dining and discussion society for leading intellectuals, writers and artists.
Mrs Kate Meyrick (1875 – 1933) was a formidable woman in London’s interwar social scene.
known as “Ma Meyrick” she ran multiple popular and notorious establishments in Soho and the West End during the 1920s
Born in Dublin she married Dr Ferdinand Meyrick and had eight children in Hampshire.
She’d been active in the struggle for women’s suffrage - which had faltered during the First world war. In 1919 she broke from her unhappy marriage to plunge into the murky world of London’s emerging nightclub business, establishing herself as its Queen: carving out an audacious career at the heart of Soho’s nightlife in order, she said, to fund her children' s educations at top public schools.
In a game of cat and mouse with the authorities, Meyrick would open a series of clubs under different names - As soon as one was shut down for breaching licensing laws she would open another – usually at the same premises- 43 Gerrard St.
The 43 Club was Meyrick’s most famous venue. Opened in 1921, it became legendary for its wild jazz age parties which scandalised the newspapers, kept the metropolitan Police very busy by the look of the Police reports in the National Archives and entertained a loyal, glittering guestlist, of celebrity visitors with a vibrant mix of society figures from royalty to artists and writers.
1925 Layout of the 43 The National ArchivesMEPO 2-4481 (22) Metropolitan Police Office.
Two of her daughters married aristocrats and a number of her children came to work for her in her enterprises.
The club was emblematic of post-WWI rebellious nightlife famed for late-night dancing where customers paid to dance to jazz bands. Open all night until 6am, it served dinners, suppers and breakfasts alongside the illicit alcohol.
1925 Articles on Merricks club raid by permission The National Archives
The 43 in 1924 Opened by Kate Meyrick at 43 Gerrard St
Kate Meyrick and the 43 1928 by permission of National Portrait Gallery
Collecting the door money in the front office was Meyrick, The ‘Queen of Nightclubs’. She had a whirlwind 13-year career, made and spent a fortune, and served five prison sentences.
1928 Mrs Merrick’s release celebrated. - permission The National Archives
1929 Corrupt Policing it seems, kept Mrs Merrick out of prison for some years-The National Archives
MRS MEYRICK’S WISDOM
She told “‘Champagne cost on average 12 shillings 6 pence per bottle and I sold it ….after legal hours at 30 shillings to £2 per bottle.”
There was certainly money to be made.
“ If I personally made £100 in a given night, I suppose the entire club took £250. The waiters and the dance hostesses between them would certainly make more than I made... From 1919 to 1932, £500,000 passed through my hands.’
Further noting - “The biggest earner was I discovered that men will pay almost anything to be amused,’
In February 1922, police raided the 43 Club and Meyrick was fined at Bow Street Magistrates' Court for selling intoxicating liquor without a licence.
“A raid at these places was always an exciting affair", the press reported, "whistles would be blown and glasses knocked off the tables in a vain effort to conceal the fact that illegal drinking was taking place".
On the ‘dance hostesses’ who kept clients spending, Meyrick said
‘I chose them primarily for their ability as dancing partners, but they were also very beautiful,’. They were mostly girls who had worked in the choruses of musical comedies or revues, which meant they were superb dancers and knew how to wear their clothes”
She clearly supported many female staff and pushed back on the accusation that they were little more than prostitutes,
“To say that every girl I engaged for my clubs had always been a ‘good’ girl would be to say too much. But this I say in all sincerity: the Meyrick clubs have always made it worth the while of their dance hostesses to keep straight, and many a young woman has admitted to me that only the earnings she was able to make in one of my clubs had saved her from turning to a degraded means of gaining her livelihood.’
The Good Ole Daily Mail gives Merrick’s scandalised husband an article 1933