1936 On the Continent

Army and Navy, for graduates of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, etc. At the St. James’s Club foreign diplomats foregather and meet their British confreres. Somewhat less exclusive, and therefore also more modern, is the Royal Automobile Club, which has a magnificient swimming pool. The foreign visitor will find it easiest to obtain admission to this Club.
Women Excluded
    Visitors to London who must be content with an external view of the clubs—which means the majority of them—may find it interesting to walk, slowly and deliberately as befits the district, along St. James’s Street and Pall Mall, and observe the characteristic types of English clubmen on their way to their real home. (To the real clubman his own house is only a dormitory). It is also possible to gather something about the atmosphere of the clubs by the naughty device of looking in through the windows.
    Women are either completely excluded, from or only admitted on very special occasions, to these citadels of the English gentleman. The women’s clubs, the best known of which are the Lyceum and the Forum, strike a far more sociable note, but are far less important than the clubs of the stronger sex.
    It is due to a logical development that “Clubland” is in the immediate vicinity of Whitehall, the centre of government, for a considerable proportion of the club memberships is recruited from the Government services—the Army, Navy and Civil Service.
The Royal Palaces
    The Government offices at Whitehall, are situated not far from the two Royal Residences, Buckingham and St. James’s Palaces. Curiously enough, St. James’s Palace is symbolically still
the
Royal Residence, although it has never been so since the reign of Queen Victoria, exceptduring the ten months’ reign of Edward VIII, who kept his “bachelor apartments” in a wing of the Palace.
    King George VI is at the time of writing still living at York House, Piccadilly, but is shortly moving to his official residence at Buckingham Palace, which is the actual centre of court life, though foreign ambassadors are still being accredited to St. James’s. However, the levees take place at St. James’s.
The Changing of the Guard
    The latter Palace occupies the site of an old hospital, and was originally built by Henry VIII as a hunting lodge. Buckingham Palace, which is bigger and more modern, was once the property of the Dukes of Buckingham, from whom George III purchased it.
    However, even the older Palace presents little of historical interest. Indeed, there is not much left of the original building.
    Neither of the two palaces is very representative, and those who wish to see the regal splendour will more probably find it at Windsor Castle or Hampton Court. These are more easily accessible to visitors than the two Palaces in London, for although St. James’s is open to the public on rare occasions, in ordinary circumstances it is no less inaccessible than Buckingham Palace. Nevertheless, the two Palaces attract many visitors each day, particularly during the picturesque ceremony of the Changing of the Guard, which takes place at midday.
    If the visitor is lucky, he may arrive in front of one of the Palaces during a State event of some importance, when he may see statesmen and others in court dress, foreign diplomats in their richly embroidered coats, and, of course, the glittering uniforms of the various regiments and arms—generally, the sort of pageantry that can only be seen in London.
Debutantes
    But perhaps the visitor may find it still more interesting to watch the arrival of debutantes—young women of a certain social class who have reached an age when they are “brought out”—for one of the Courts. At such a time hundreds of cars may be waiting for admission outside Buckingham Palace, each containing a debutante wearingthe prescribed dress, probably with an ostrich feather in her hair, and an older lady who is to introduce her to the King and Queen.
    This waiting period affords the public a glimpse of the life of the “upper classes,” but it also affords the said “upper classes” a little publicity, which they undoubtedly welcome.
Whitehall
    Those visitors who, beyond seeing museum pieces and ancient monuments, wish to grasp the essence and meaning of the capital of a world empire, will probably find the key to the problem in Whitehall, the comparatively short street leading from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Street. The Monarchy in Great Britain, with its