While it has now been dethroned by the mighty Tikka Masala and the moreish fish and chips, Britain's most iconic dish was once - indisputably - Roast Beef. At the weekly meetings, the members wore a blue coat and buff waistcoat with brass buttons bearing a gridiron motif and the words "Beef and liberty". The steaks and baked potatoes were accompanied by port or porter. After dinner, the evening was given up to noisy revelry. The club met almost continuously until 1867. Sir Henry Irving continued its tradition in the late nineteenth century. The Sublime Society was revived in 1966 and holds many of the original Society's relics in safe keeping. Its membership includes lineal descendants from the nineteenth century membership, and it adheres to the Society's early rules and customs. [1] Deegan, John F. The Chronicles of the Melbourne Beefsteak Club. Volume 1, 1886-1889 (Melbourne: The Club, 1890)

Beef and Liberty : Roast Beef, John Bull and the English Nation Beef and Liberty : Roast Beef, John Bull and the English Nation

Thomas Sheridan founded a "Beefsteak Club" in Dublin at the Theatre Royal in 1749, and of this Peg Woffington was president. According to William and Robert Chambers, writing in 1869, "it could hardly be called a club at all, seeing all expenses were defrayed by Manager Sheridan, who likewise invited the guests – generally peers and members of parliament. … Such weekly meetings were common to all theatres, it being a custom for the principal performers to dine together every Saturday and invite 'authors and other geniuses' to partake of their hospitality." [3] Join The Rest Is History Club (www.restishistorypod.com) for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community.The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks was re-formed in 1966 and has met continually since then. Several nineteenth century members have lineal descendants among today's membership, who wear the original blue and buff uniform (of a Regency character) and buttons and adhere to the 1735 constitution whenever practicable. [1] This revival started to meet at the Irish Club, Eaton Square, in 1966, then at the Beefsteak Club, Irving Street, and today meets in a private room at the Boisdale Club and Restaurant in Belgravia/ Victoria and, annually, at White's Club in St James’s, where it is able to dine at the early society's nineteenth century table and where it also keeps the early society's original "President’s Chair", which Queen Elizabeth II gave to the current society in 1969. [1] [33] Although other of the society's relics (such as the original Grid Iron, Sword of State, Halberts and early members' chairs, rings, glasses, documents, etc.) have passed down to members of the current society from ancestors in the original society, the current society "leaves such items in safety, keeping less fragile replicas and proxy items for its normal meetings in Central London". [1] Other early customs of the original society, such as the singing and composition of songs, are also encouraged by the current society. [34] Beefsteak Club, Irving Street [ edit ] Early members of the 1876 Beefsteak Club: (top) Henry Irving (l) and W. S. Gilbert; (below) Henry Labouchère (l) and F. C. Burnand Stedman, Jane W. (1996). W. S. Gilbert, A Classic Victorian & His Theatre. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816174-3. Allen, Robert Joseph (1933). The Clubs of Augustan London. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. OCLC 2174749.

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Stuart, Francis. "Stuart, Francis (Frank) (1844–1910)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 12 (1990). Retrieved 16 March 2012

Hollingshead, John (1903). Good Old Gaiety: An Historiette & Remembrance. London: Gaiety Theatre Co. OCLC 1684298. a b c Horne, Colin J., "Notes on Steele and the Beef-Steak Club", The Review of English Studies, July 1945, pp. 239–44

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Elliot, William Gerald (1898). Amateur Clubs and Actors. London: E. Arnold. p. 127. OCLC 1388732. Forty Thieves Beefsteak Club. The first known beefsteak club (the Beef-Stake Club, Beef-Steak Clubb or Honourable Beef-Steak Club) seems to have been that founded in about 1705 in London. [2] It was started by some seceders from the Whiggish Kit-Cat Club, "desirous of proving substantial beef was as prolific a food for an English wit as pies and custards for a Kit-cat beau." [3] The actor Richard Estcourt was its "providore" or president and its most popular member. William Chetwood in A General History of the Stage is the much quoted source that the "chief Wits and great men of the nation" were members of this club. This was the first beefsteak club known to have used a gridiron as its badge. [3] In 1708, Dr. William King dedicated his poem "Art of Cookery" to "the Honourable Beef Steak Club". His poem includes the couplet:At a dinner at the club in 1890, Stoker was introduced to a Hungarian professor, Arminius Vambéry, who told him of the Dracula legend. [35] Report of the fiftieth anniversary dinner, "Beefsteak and Brotherhood", Cairns Post, 6 June 1936, p.13. Thompson, Charles Willis, "Thirty Years of Gridiron Club Dinners", The New York Times, 24 October 1915, p. SM16