Item 1 - Draft rules of the Cambridge Republican Club, etc., in the hand of W. K. Clifford

5 single sheets

(On the sheet used as a wrapper is a list of ‘Arrangements suggested by the members of the Bachelor’s Table [in the Hall at Trinity College] for regulating the introduction of Guests’, also in Clifford’s hand.)

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Transcript

1. The club shall be called the republican club.

2. Republicanism shall be taken to mean hostility to the hereditary principle as exemplified in monarchical and aristocratic institutions and to all social and political privileges depending upon difference of sex.

3. The profession of republican opinions shall be the only qualification for membership.

4. The club shall meet at dinner at 7 on three Wednesdays in the October and Lent terms, and on one in the May term.

Resolved The first dinner shall be held on Wednesday 23 Nov 1870.

5. At the beginning of every Oct Term a secretary shall be elected by ballot.

6. The sec. shall give at least 4 days notice of the place of the next dinner.

7. Each member shall be required to inform the secretary 2 days before the dinner whether he intends to be present. If he neglect to give notice of his intentions he shall be fined 5/-.

8. The secretary shall have the power of giving notice of subjects for discussion after the dinner. The discussion shall be carried on in a conversational manner, and must refer to some social or political subject.

9. Smoking shall be allowed after 10.

10. The secretary shall have the power at the request of three members, to invite a stranger sympathising with the objects of the club to the dinner.

11. No undergraduate shall be admitted to the club either as a member or as a stranger.

12. The club shall consist of [blank] original members. Candidates hereafter proposed at one meeting of the club shall be ballotted for at the next, and to be elected must be voted for by three-fourths of those present. The secretary shall give notice of the names of candidates for election.

13. Each member shall pay an annual subsc. of 5/–.

14. Any proposed alteration of the rules shall be given notice of at the previous meeting, to be carried must be voted for by a majority of the club.

Original Members {1}

Prof. Fawcett
H. Jackson
C H Pearson
G R Crotch
P T Main
W K Clifford—secretary
John Hatcher Moulton

[Written on the back of the wrapper:]

Arrangements suggested by the members of the Bachelors’ Table for regulating the introduction of Guests.

1. Every bachelor desirous of introducing a guest shall give notice to the Senior bachelor not later than at hall the day before.

2. The senior bachelor shall admit, according to priority of application, so many guests as, upon the testimony of the hall butler, there shall be room for.

3. The cook’s and combination butlers† account for the dinner of each guest shall be charged to the bachelor introducing him.

[Manicule.] It is proposed that the charge from the table for each guest be 2/6 on ordinary days and 3/ on feast days; notice of these being given by the senior bachelor as at present.

4. No members of Trinity College shall be introduced as Guests.

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The wrapper is docketed ‘WKC | Dft rules | Cambridge | Republican Club | (1870) | &c’.

{1} The names of Jackson and Pearson are each followed by a black mark. Moulton’s name was added in a different hand.

† Sic.