The 16' Club, commonly referred to as The Sixteens, the College Sixteen or simply 16,Secret Societies: From the Ancient and Arcane to the Modern and Clandestine, by David V. Barrett, is a private

dining club A dining club (UK) or eating club (US) is a Social club, social group, usually requiring membership (which may, or may not be available only to certain people), which meets for dinners and discussion on a regular basis. They may also often have g ...

for male members of St David's College, Trinity Saint David. It is the only remaining undergraduate dining club at the university, and the oldest in

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Foundation and tradition

Established for undergraduate scholars at St David's College, the precise foundation of the club is impossible to place accurately because so much documentation from the pre-war era has been lost. Nonetheless a volume published by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

places the approximate foundation of the club at 1874-6.The International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders, by Alan Axelrod, There existed a body of students in the 1830s to 1850s who banded together in secrecy to flout the rules forbidding students from appearing in the town without their

gown A gown, from the Latin word, ''gunna'', is a usually loose outer garment from knee-to-full-length worn by people of both sexes in Europe from the Early Middle Ages to the 17th century, and continuing today in certain professions; later, the t ...

, "communicating" with local women and frequenting the local alehouses. It is this tradition which the Club is known for following. While some authors have categorised it as a

secret society A secret society is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence ag ...

, this is contested in other sources. The club's colour is pale blue.

Present day

Today The 16' Club is solely a dining club, though vestiges of the university's clerical origin remain in the retention of the College Prayer and the nominal requirement that members be

bachelors A bachelor is a man who is not and never has been married.Bachelors are, in Pitt & al.'s phrasing, "men who live independently, outside of their parents' home and other institutional settings, who are neither married nor cohabitating". (). Etymo ...

.The 16' Club Codex, independently published: 1971 The clandestine nature of these meetings, and the reticence of its members, means that little is known about the club.

Purpose

The purpose of the College 16 is loosely defined as, "...to maintain the traditions of Saint David's College, and to provide and maintain a fraternity of gentlemen of calibre for mutual support whilst at University and in post graduate life."

Membership

Membership of the club is by invitation only. The requirements and procedure are unknown. There is also reference to an initiation where all members stand on the Mound outside the Old Building and relieve themselves. How true these tasks are is unknown.

Notable members

* Bishop Carl Cooper *

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* Lord Brian Griffiths *

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* Ian Marchant * Karl McCartney MP * Pete Paphides * Bishop Timothy Rees MC *

Sulak Sivaraksa Sulak Sivaraksa (, ; ; born 27 March 1933) is a Thai social activist, professor, writer and the founder and director of the Thai NGO " Sathirakoses-Nagapradeepa Foundation", named after two authorities on Thai culture, Sathirakoses (Phya Anuma ...

Matteo Pistono, ''Roar: Sulak Sivaraksa and the Path of Socially Engaged Buddhism'' (North Atlantic Books, 2019), at page 16 *

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* Vice Admiral Peter John Wilkinson

References