More than 100 years of history and traditions
Club life and major personalities – November 8, 1982
The life of a club is found in the characteristics and personalities of its members. One way of remembering past members of the Club who have developed distinguished personalities, is to recall those members who have served as president and whose names are stencilled on the panels in the front hall of the Club. The first on this list is the first president, Seargent P. Stearns, who served from 1907 to 1918. He was a renowned chairman, who conducted meetings with skill and tact, and with a natural eloquence which usually carried the point he was making. It is not easy to look back over a span of 100 years and pick out of the lists of members those individuals who gave the Club its distinctiveness.
The Members’ Round table, a table in the Main Dining room and in the Billiard room at which members, alone or in groups, join with others for lunch, has long been known for good fellowship. Distinguished members lunching there in the period between the wars included J.M. Macdonnell, Roy Campbell, B.K. Sandwell, A. Forbes Hale, W. Gordon Mitchell, W.F. Biggar, M.W.H. Mackenzie, Sen. A.K. Hugessen, Francis Hankin, W.W. Chipman, Sandy Urquhart, Arthur Surveyer, Monteath Douglas, Graham Towers, A.L. Lawes, Sen. L.M. Gouin, W.M. Birks, Ross MacDonald, Roy Dillon and Charles Hébert.
The shifting population gathered around this table reflected the changing personality of the Club in the post-World War II years. In the 1950s, a group of senior lawyers, businessmen and others involved in academic and professional careers made a habit of lunching at this table. In the 1960s and 1970s, a convivial group of members convened at lunch most Fridays in the main dining room. The group, which had a fluid membership, usually consisted of Albert Cloutier, John Lynch-Staunton, Kenneth Mackay and a floating quorum of their contemporaries. This “Friday Lunch Club” usually did not adjourn until late in the afternoon.
During the 1980s the Members’ Round table regulars included John Durnford, the dean of the Law Faculty at McGill, Bob Murray, John Humphrey, Bill Hackett, William H. Pugsley, George Hodgson and Don Bailey. It was probably the most McGill faculty-oriented population seen in the main dining room at any one period.
In more recent times, the use of the Members’ Round table has been steady. Regulars have included Dick Stevenson and Bruce Kippen, who also distinguished himself annually by performing as Santa Claus at the annual children’s Christmas party. McGill law professor William Tetley, who abandoned the Faculty Club for the University Club in the 1980s, lunched at this table, leading a lively discussion among such other regulars as Stuart Hyndman, Patrick Stoker, Warren Simpson, Bruce, Kippen, Kalman Samuels, Sean Murphy, Chill Heward, Tass Grivakes, Eric Clark, Gavin Ross, Michael Malley, Gordon Smith, Claude David, John B. Claxton and Robert J. Bourdius. Before smoking was prohibited, some lunchers adjourned to the Leacock room after lunch for coffee, a cigarette, cigar, or pipe.
Among the regulars at the centre table is a group of senior members who are always pleased when younger members join them. The initial approach is daunting to some, if not all, intermediate members. Louis Fernandes was in the main dining room when two intermediate members arrived, having resolved to sit at the centre table for the first time. They were somewhat taken aback to discover that no one was there, although it was twelve o’clock. Louis explained that they would have a long wait as the others were just starting their pre-lunch drinks downstairs.
The Club continues to be a place where members of varied interests enjoy gathering together.