Drones Club

The Drones Club is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. It is a gentlemen's club in London. Many of his Jeeves and Blandings Castle stories feature the club or its members.

The name "Drones" has been used by several real-life clubs and restaurants.

Overview

The Drones Club is in Mayfair, London, located in Dover Street, off Piccadilly. A drone being a male bee that does no work, living off the labour of others, it aptly describes the contemporary Edwardian stereotype of rich, idle young club members. At the same time, though, it should be pointed out that many prominent members had useful occupations. Pongo Twistleton, for example, was reading for the Bar, and other members were mentioned as holding down jobs.

Wodehouse based the Drones Club on a combination of three real London clubs: the Bachelors' Club (existed around the turn of the century), then mostly Buck's Club (established 1919), and a dash of the Bath Club for its swimming pool's ropes and rings. The fictional Drones barman, McGarry, has the same surname as the Buck's first bartender, a Mr McGarry (Buck's barman from 1919 to 1941, credited with creating the Buck's Fizz and Sidecar cocktails). However Evelyn Waugh declared that the Drones did not resemble any real club in 1920s London.^[1][2]

A real club has been based at 40 Dover Street since 1893, The Arts Club. Other gentlemen's clubs which have existed on Dover Street, but are now dissolved, include the Bath Club, the Junior Naval and Military Club, and the Scottish Club, as well as two mixed-sex clubs, the Albemarle Club and the Empress Club. None of these were ever considered among London's 'premier' clubs of the kind found on St James' Street and Pall Mall, and so their ambience often had something of the raucous informality of the fictional Drones Club.

About a dozen club members are major or secondary recurring characters in the Wodehouse stories. In addition to Bertie Wooster (Jeeves stories), Pongo Twistleton (Uncle Fred stories), Rupert Psmith (Psmith stories), and Freddie Threepwood (Blandings stories), prominent recurring drones include Bingo Little and Freddie Widgeon, plus Monty Bodkin, Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps, Tuppy Glossop, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, Archibald Mulliner, and the club millionaire Oofy Prosser.

Events

• The Drones Club Annual Golf Rally.
• The Drones Club Annual Darts Tournament (sweepstakes).
• The Drones Club Annual Fat Uncle Contest (sweepstakes).

Stories

Among the Wodehouse works, what was later dubbed the "Drones Club series" is a loose set of separate stories told by various narrators, which are either told at the club, or have some events happening at the club, or a club member for protagonist.

Main canon

The main canon consists of 21 short stories (eight Freddie Widgeon, eight Bingo Little, one Bingo and Widgeon, and four other Drones, including the one introducing Pongo Twistleton and his Uncle Fred), as eventually collected in the omnibus:

• Tales from the Drones Club^[3] (1982) later The Drones Omnibus (1991)

The same set of short stories is also available in their original collections:

• Collected in Young Men in Spats (1936)
  • "Fate" (Freddie Widgeon)
  • "Tried in the Furnace" (Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps and Pongo Twistleton)
  • "Trouble Down at Tudsleigh" (Freddie Widgeon)
  • "The Amazing Hat Mystery" (Percy Wimbolt and Nelson Cork)
  • "Goodbye to All Cats" (Freddie Widgeon)
  • "The Luck of the Stiffhams" (Stiffy Stiffham)
  • "Noblesse Oblige" (Freddie Widgeon)
  • "Uncle Fred Flits By" (Pongo Twistleton with Uncle Fred)
• Collected in Lord Emsworth and Others (1937)
  • "The Masked Troubadour" (Freddie Widgeon)
• Collected in Eggs, Beans and Crumpets (1940)
  • "All's Well With Bingo" (Bingo Little with Oofy)
  • "Bingo and the Peke Crisis" (Bingo Little)
  • "The Editor Regrets" (Bingo Little)
  • "Sonny Boy" (Bingo Little with Oofy)
• Collected in Nothing Serious (1950)
  • "The Shadow Passes" (Bingo Little)
  • "Bramley Is So Bracing" (Freddie Widgeon)
• Collected in A Few Quick Ones (1959)
  • "The Fat of the Land" (Freddie Widgeon)
  • "The Word in Season" (Bingo Little)
  • "Leave it to Algy" (Bingo Little with Oofy Prosser)
  • "Oofy, Freddie and the Beef Trust" (Freddie Widgeon with Oofy Prosser)
• Collected in Plum Pie (1966)
  • "Bingo Bans the Bomb" (Bingo Little with Freddie Widgeon)
  • "Stylish Stouts" (Bingo Little)

Freddie Widgeon

• Fate (Young Men In Spats)
• Trouble Down at Tudsleigh (Young Men In Spats)
• Goodbye to All Cats (Young Men In Spats)
• Noblesse Oblige (Young Men In Spats)
• The Masked Troubadour (Lord Emsworth and Others)
• Bramley Is So Bracing (Nothing Serious)
• The Fat of the Land (A Few Quick Ones)
• Oofy, Freddie and the Beef Trust (A Few Quick Ones)

Bingo Little

• All's Well With Bingo (Eggs, Beans and Crumpets)
• Bingo and the Peke Crisis (Eggs, Beans and Crumpets)
• The Editor Regrets (Eggs, Beans and Crumpets)
• Sonny Boy (Eggs, Beans and Crumpets)
• The Shadow Passes (Nothing Serious)
• The Word in Season (A Few Quick Ones)
• Leave it to Algy (A Few Quick Ones)
• Bingo Bans the Bomb (Plum Pie)
• Stylish Stouts (Plum Pie)

Other

• Tried in the Furnace (Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps and Pongo Twistleton) – (Young Men In Spats)
• The Amazing Hat Mystery (Percy Wimbolt and Nelson Cork) – (Young Men In Spats)
• The Luck of the Stiffhams (Stiffy Stiffham) – (Young Men In Spats)
• Uncle Fred Flits By (Pongo Twistleton with Uncle Fred) – (Young Men In Spats)

Additional short stories

Can be added the three interlocking Archibald-and-Aurelia short stories about Drones member Archibald Mulliner (the first one starting at the Club), also part of the Mr Mulliner series:

• Collected in Mr Mulliner Speaking (1929)
  • "The Reverent Wooing of Archibald" (Archibald Mulliner and Algy Wymondham-Wymondham, told by Mr Mulliner)
• Collected in Young Men in Spats (1936)
  • "Archibald and the Masses" (Archibald Mulliner, told by Mr Mulliner)
  • "The Code of the Mulliners" (Archibald Mulliner, told by Mr Mulliner)

Additional novels

Can be added five novels about the adventures of Drones as main protagonist:

• Money for Nothing (1928) – novel about Hugo Carmody and Ronnie Fish
• The Luck of the Bodkins (1935) – novel about Monty Bodkin with Reggie Tennyson
• Laughing Gas (1936) – novel about Reginald Swithin
• Barmy in Wonderland (1952) – novel about Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps
• Ice in the Bedroom (1961) – novel about Freddie Widgeon with Oofy Prosser
• Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin (1972) – novel about Monty Bodkin

Related stories

Related are all stories about those Drone members already part of another series (Jeeves and Bertie, Uncle Fred and Pongo, Psmith, Blandings's Freddie Threepwood), but more especially:

• The Inimitable Jeeves (1923) – Jeeves semi-novel, Bertie and Bingo, some events at the club
• Leave it to Psmith (1923) – Psmith and Blandings novel, also Freddie Threepwood, some events at the club
• Summer Lightning (1929) – Blandings novel with Hugo Carmody and Ronnie Fish
• Heavy Weather (1933) – Blandings novel with Hugo Carmody and Ronnie Fish, also Monty Bodkin, some events at the club
• Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939) – Uncle Fred and Blandings novel, action started by Pongo, Horace, and Oofy at the club
• Cocktail Time (1958) – Uncle Fred novel, some events with Pongo at the club
• "Life with Freddie" in Plum Pie (1966) – Freddie Threepwood novella, some events with the club's barman

Relatable stories

Relatable is one story, featuring the Club or Drones as secondary characters:

• Jill the Reckless (1921) – novel, Drone Algy Martyn as secondary character, one chapter at the club

Of course, many more stories simply include Drones member in some scenes, or being mentioned.

Not included

Not included are all identical stories published under other titles (in magazines or U.S. versions), or "recycled" stories, especially:

• "Comrade Bingo" and "Bingo and the Little Woman" (Bingo Little) – 1922 magazine stories merged into the semi-novel The Inimitable Jeeves (1923)
• "Quest" (Freddie Widgeon) – 1931 magazine story rewritten as "The Knightly Quest of Mervyn" (Mr Mulliner, non-Drones story, still featuring the Oofy stand-in "Alexander C. Prosser")
• "The Ordeal of Bingo Little" (Bingo Little) – 1954 magazine story rewritten as "Leave It to Algy"^[4] (Bingo Little, included above)
• "Unpleasantness at Kozy Kot" (Drone Dudley "Biffy" Wix-Biffen) – 1958 "exclusive" story recycled^[5] for the U.S. edition of A Few Quick Ones (1959) from "Fixing it for Freddie" (Jeeves story)
• "The Great Fat Uncle Contest" (Bingo Little) – 1965 magazine rewrite of "Stylish Stouts" (Bingo Little, included above)

Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets

Most of the Drones short stories are also "Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets stories", as Wodehouse divides the club members into "Eggs", "Beans", and "Crumpets". This is allegedly based on the habit they have of addressing each other as "old egg", "old bean", or "my dear old crumpet" ... although, in fact, no character in the stories actually addresses another character by these nicknames.

A few later stories introduce a fourth subset of Drones Club members known as "Piefaces".

Many of the Drones Club stories begin with unnamed members of The Drones Club talking about the latest exploits of Freddie Widgeon, Pongo Twistleton, Bingo Little, or another of their number. The story then transitions into a particularly well-informed Crumpet detailing the specifics of tale to an uninformed Egg or Bean:

"Beau Widgeon?" said the Egg, impressed. "What ho!" A Crumpet shook his head. "You won't catch Freddie joining any Foreign Legion, once he gets on to the fact that it means missing his morning cup of tea. [...]" (in "Noblesse Oblige")

"[...] I allude, of course, to the Bella Mae Jobson affair." The Bean asked what the Bella Mae Jobson affair was, and the Crumpet, expressing surprise that he had not heard of it, said that it was the affair of Bella Mae Jobson. (in "The Editor Regrets")

"He can't do that here," said an Egg, [...] "Hoy!" he went on, addressing the Crumpet, who had entered as he spoke. (in "The Word in Season")

Wodehouse had already used this technique in the stories told by his Mr Mulliner, who refers to his anonymous interlocutors by the name of their drink.

Members

The total number of members is not established. At the Drones Club weekend in Le Touquet, France, were "about 87 members",^[6] and not all of them crossed the Channel (such as Pongo Twistleton and Horace Pendlebury-Davenport). Comparatively, only a few Drones have been depicted:

Confirmed Drones members include

Possible Drones members include

• Marmaduke "Chuffy" Chuffnell
• Augustus "Gussie" Fink-Nottle
• Harold "Stinker" Pinker

Club staff includes

• Bates (hall porter)
• McGarry (a barman)
• Robinson (a cloakroom waiter)

Virtual Drones members include

• "Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets" (unknown narrator(s) and various nondescript members)
• Dudley "Biffy" Wix-Biffen (exists only in a non-canon, recycled story^[5])

Real Drones Clubs

Some real "Drones" clubs or restaurants exist or have existed, including:

• The Drones Club, a private club in Point Judith, Rhode Island (USA), was established in the late 1930's.
• A "Drones" restaurant exists since the early 1970s in London at 1 Pont Street off Knightsbridge.^[10] Previously a burger-and-fries, it was turned in November 2000 into a gastronomic restaurant by new owner and restaurateur Marco Pierre White.^[11]
• A "Drones Club" existed in London at 12 St. George Street in Mayfair.^[12] Also previously owned by Marco Pierre White and Piers Adam, the smaller restaurant was purchased in 2004 by businessman Ben Goldsmith and turned into a members-only dining club. Membership included pop stars, peers, CEOs, and princesses. This club closed in March 2007 due to losing its location to a restaurant, and may not reopen.^[13]
• Another "Drones" restaurant, aka "Drones Fenwick of Bond Street", exists in London inside the Fenwick department store at 63 New Bond Street.^[14] It was linked to "The Drones Club" above.
• The "Drones Club of Belgium" is the name of a P. G. Wodehouse fanclub, founded in 1989, about 60 members as of 2007.^[15]
• A club named 'The Drones' exists at Charterhouse School
• The Drones Comedy Club is an informal comedy open mike show hosted by the Chapter Arts Centre
• The Drones Club is a live music club occurring in various venues around Stoke Newington in London since 2004. Performers have included Bobby Conn, Holly Golightly, Phil Wilson of the June Brides and Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots.

See also

• Diogenes Club - a fictional club to which Mycroft Holmes belonged

References, notes and sources

References and notes

Sources (members and stories)

• Hutchinson, Kyle (11 May 2006). "Wodehouse Places: Drones Club". The P. G. Wodehouse Story Index [database]. Archived from the original on 21 July 2007. 
• Kuzmenko, Michel (The Russian Wodehouse Society) (22 March 2007). "Wodehouse books". Bibliography. Retrieved 24 July 2007. 
• Midkiff, Neil (The Wodehouse Society [US]) (October 2001). "The Wodehouse short stories". P. G. Wodehouse pages. Archived from the original on 17 February 2007. 
• Netherlands, The P. G. Wodehouse Society (1 March 2005). "Short Stories by P. G. Wodehouse". Bibliography. Archived from the original on 1 May 2007. 
• Reggie (16 March 2007). "Wodehouse Gazetteer: Drones Club". Blandings, a Companion to the Works of P. G. Wodehouse. Archived from the original on 21 July 2007. 
• Ring, Tony (The P. G. Wodehouse Society UK) (June 2000). "Wodehouse 'Series' Short Stories". Wodehouse Information Sheets. Archived from the original on 21 July 2007.