Our History
Walbrook Ward Club lies at the heart of the City of London. While it is one of the smallest wards in the City, within its boundaries lie Mansion House, The Wren church of St Stephen Walbrook, The Bank of England, the City of London Magistrates Court, Grocers’ Hall and the House of Rothschild.
Our beginning
Walbrook Ward Club, founded on 4 December 1809 at the Bay Tree Tavern in St Swithin’s Lane, is one of the oldest ward clubs in the City, its purpose being to promote friendly and neighbourly interchange. At the beginning of the 19th century, many people lived and worked in the centre of the City. Numerous businesses, such as timber and coffee merchants and importers, who unloaded their goods on the banks of the Thames, had premises within the Ward.
Our Founding Purpose
The Club, from the outset, served as a connecting link to bind the residents together. It watched over the interests of the Ward, and fostered knowledge of the history, heritage and traditions of the City, and in particular of the Ward. It provided a forum for inhabitants to discuss local conditions, to complain or protest to the Alderman and Common Councilmen of the Ward. Equally, it organised convivial social gatherings, which continue to this day.
Our Centenary
One hundred years later, at the Centenary Dinner, Alderman Sir George Woodman looked back at the Club’s beginnings: ‘It was amid the financial and commercial gloom of the year 1809 that the Walbrook Ward Club set out upon what has proved to be a long career. In that year the credit of the country was at a low ebb, and the outlook was scarcely bright. But the inhabitants of Walbrook, business men who then lived in the ward itself, working early and late with a vigour and persistence which should make the modern citizen ashamed, did not lack courage. Probably they felt the need of a common meeting ground, where the stirring events of the day could be discussed’
City Press, 11 December 1909
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Our Current Focus
Although the residential population of Walbrook Ward is now greatly reduced, and small, local businesses have given way to large international corporations and institutions, in the fields of financial and professional services, the Club still has an important social role to play in the City, as is clear from the current membership of more than two hundred people.
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