The following item is part of a newspaper article refering to the Seven Seas Club of London and was published on Saturday December 16th. 1933 in the ’ARGUS’ – (a Melbourne newspaper in circulation between 1846 and 1957). It gives a good explanation of how our parent Club came to be.
Affiliated Clubs
How Sailors Meet in London
By KAYE CHARTERSON
There is no club quite like the Seven Seas Club, which has more than 1,000 members throughout the world. Old salts and young are among them, men wedded to the service of the sea. It is the old salts perhaps, who make the monthly gatherings of the club remarkable, for there are among them, not only the bearers of many famous and gallant names, but sea dogs who tell of the days of tall ships and blue water adventures which can never return. The Seven Seas Club is a dining club, which meets once a month in an hotel in London. To defy superstition the members voted long ago that these monthly dinners should take place on a Friday. The club was born a year or two ago, as the result of a chance remark made in a cafe in Soho. Four old sea dogs had finished lunch and were puffing on their pipes and cigars, telling yarns, living again the old days of the brave ships of sail in which the four had served. One name recalled another, mention of this barque or that brigantine brought forth reminiscences, until at length one of the quartet laid down his cigar and addressed his companions. “Those days have passed and the shipmates with whom we lived then are gradually passing year by year,” he said. “Now why shouldn’t we get formed a sort of club – something at any rate which would keep alive for veterans like ourselves the grand brotherhood of the sea?” “Why not?” the others echoed. Thus was the Seven Seas Club formed.
One of it’s founders was Commander F.G. Cooper, who was an intimate friend of the late Joseph Conrad, shipmaster and writer of epic sea stories. A great number of names now on the roll, are those of old time shipping masters, but there are also many admirals, commanders, captains and others whose lives have been spent journeying here and there across the globe. One of the clubs most notable members today is John Masefield, who once sailed before the mast, and is now Poet Laureate. There is a certain ritual followed at these monthly Friday night gatherings. The meals are always very jolly, and a score of reunions take place between old salts who have come from their retirement to meet former shipmates just in from the other end of the earth, and so on. But it is after the tables have been cleared and the pipes and cigars are alight that the evening proper begins ” to see the full article, click on the following link: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/11721281
The Seven Seas Club of Simonstown – South Africa
The name was taken from Rudyard Kipling’s short story, “Judson and the Empire” when, having visited The RN Club he stated that, “In this Club, as the Captains come and go, you will hear the gossip of all the Seven Seas.”