The Gridiron Club, popularly called The Grid, is a

club Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a '' Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea'' Brands and enterprises ...

open to male and female students at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. The name of any prospective member is entered into 'The Book'. Current members may subsequently sign in approval of the proposed. If any current member disapproves of the proposed, they are given the opportunity to 'black ball' with proper justification. Members of other clubs, such as The Bullingdon Club, The Piers Gaveston and The Stoics, are usually chosen from among existing Grid members. The club was founded in 1884 and, as with other beefsteak clubs of the 18th and 19th centuries, the traditional grilling gridiron is the club's symbol. The gridiron symbol appears on the club tie (white gridirons on an Oxford blue field) and on the sign outside its current premises in The Golden Cross. References have been made to the Gridiron Club in many works, including Evelyn Waugh's ''

Brideshead Revisited ''Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'' is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of the protagonist Charles ...

'', Compton MacKenzie's '' Sinister Street'' and

Ferdinand Mount Sir William Robert Ferdinand Mount, 3rd Baronet, FRSL (born 2 July 1939), is a British writer, novelist, and columnist for ''The Sunday Times'', as well as a political commentator. Life Ferdinand Mount, brought up by his parents in the isolate ...

's ''Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes''. The Gridiron's reciprocal club at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

is the

Pitt Club The University Pitt Club, popularly referred to as the Pitt Club, the UPC, or merely as Club, is a private members' club of the University of Cambridge, with a previously male-only membership but now open to both men and women. History The ...

. Comparable societies in the United States include

Skull and Bones Skull and Bones, also known as The Order, Order 322 or The Brotherhood of Death, is an undergraduate senior secret student society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The oldest senior class society at the university, Skull and Bone ...

at Yale, Sphinx Society at Dartmouth,

Cap and Skull Cap and Skull is a senior-year coeducational honor society at Rutgers University, founded on January 18, 1900. Admission to Cap and Skull is dependent on excellence in academics, athletics, the arts, and public service. The organization considers ...

Rutgers Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and w ...

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

Episkopon The Episkopon (Greek: ΕΠΙΣΚΟΠΩΝ, "bishop") is a secret society at Trinity College in the University of Toronto, which has been active since 1858 when its male branch was founded. The 225th reading of its original male branch was held in 2 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, and the

Porcellian Club The Porcellian Club is an all-male final club at Harvard University, sometimes called the Porc or the P.C. The year of founding is usually given as 1791, when a group began meeting under the name "the Argonauts",, p. 171: source for 1791 origins ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. Notable former members of the club include

John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. ...

, Alexander, 7th Marquess of Bath,

Lord Michael Pratt Lord Michael John Henry Pratt (15 August 1946 – 3 September 2007) was a scion of the British aristocracy. An eccentric, he is best known as the author of several historical books. Birth and ancestors Michael Pratt was born at Bayham, near Lambe ...

(a former Secretary of the Grid), and Prime Minister David Cameron (President of the Grid 1987–1988). The Gridiron has a board of trustees, the members of which are usually former members of the club. In addition, there is at least one Senior Member who supervises the running of the club and is invariably a don at the University of Oxford. Day-to-day management is handled by an undergraduate committee consisting of a President, Treasurer, Secretary and a small number of other members 'without portfolio'. During the undergraduate years of

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...

, David Cameron and

George Osborne George Gideon Oliver Osborne (born Gideon Oliver Osborne; 23 May 1971) is a former British politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and as First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the ...

, the Senior Members of the Grid were the distinguished historians

Jeremy Catto Robert Jeremy Adam Inch Catto (27 July 1939 – 17 August 2018) was a British historian who was a Rhodes fellow and tutor in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford, where he was also senior dean. Catto was a Brackenbury Scholar in History at ...

Oriel College Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, w ...

and

Maurice Keen Maurice Hugh Keen (30 October 1933 – 11 September 2012) was a British historian specializing in the Middle Ages. His father had been the Oxford University head of finance ('Keeper of the University Chest') and a fellow of Balliol College, Ox ...

of Balliol. Sports journalist

Sally Jones (journalist) Sally Jones is a British journalist, television news and sports presenter. She is three-times a world champion at real tennis; once in the singles and twice in the doubles. Education Sally Jones was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, and educa ...

and Lord Salisbury's daughter Lady Georgiana Campbell both gained notoriety by separately standing for election to the then all-male club (Lady Georgiana famously doing so in male clothing).

References

{{Reflist Clubs and societies of the University of Oxford 1884 establishments in England

See also

References