Various members of the club appear in stories included in the "Drones Club series", which contains stories not already included in other series. Most of the Drones Club stories star either Freddie Widgeon or Bingo Little. The club is initially introduced as a minor element in Wodehouse's 1920 novel Jill the Reckless; it subsequently appears with more prominence across many Wodehouse stories and novels. The Drones Club makes its final appearance as a setting in 1972's Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin.
The name "Drones" has been used by several real-life clubs and restaurants.
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 late 1920s to early 1930s stereotype of rich, idle young club members, though some of them have careers and even jobs.
As decided by a vote of the club's members, the Drones Club tie is a striking "rich purple".[1][2] A Drones Club scarf is also mentioned.[3]
Wodehouse based the Drones Club on a combination of three real London clubs: the Bachelors' Club (which existed around the turn of the century), 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.[4][5]
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 considered among London's 'premier' clubs of the kind found on St James's Street and Pall Mall, and so their ambience often had something of the raucous informality of the fictional Drones Club.
The Drones Club annual Golf tournament: A yearly golf handicap tournament that was held one year at Bingley-on-Sea.[6]
The Drones Club Squash Handicap: A yearly squash tournament. One year, Bertie Wooster was runner-up.[7]
The Drones Club Darts Tournament: An annual darts sweepstakes tournament held in February.[8] Tickets are purchased for ten shillings and members draw tournament contestants. The darts tournament then takes place, and the member who drew the winner of the tournament wins the jackpot.[9]
The Drones Club Fat Uncles Sweep: An annual sweepstakes contest introduced by Freddie Widgeon.[10] Members enter their uncles in the Fat Uncles sweep and the uncles' names are drawn from a hat. Later, on the first day of the Eton v Harrow match, the members bring their uncles to the Drones Club for lunch. McGarry, the club bartender, having the uncanny ability of estimating the weight of anything to an ounce by sight, estimates the weight of the uncles and determines the fattest uncle. The member that drew the fattest uncle wins the jackpot, which was well over a hundred pounds the first year the contest was run. A change made later to the contest is that fifty pounds is allocated from the jackpot to the nephew of the winning uncle as prize money.[11]
Among the Wodehouse works, what was later dubbed the "Drones Club series" is a loose set of separate stories told by various narrators about members of the Drones Club. Many of the stories are told at the club or have some events happening at the club.
Main canon
The main canon consists of 21 short stories (nine Bingo Little, eight Freddie 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[12] (1982) later The Drones Omnibus (1991)
The same set of short stories is also available in their original collections:
Related are all stories about those Drones Club members already part of another series (Jeeves and Bertie, Blandings's Freddie Threepwood, Uncle Fred and Pongo, Psmith, Mr Mulliner's nephew Archibald Mulliner), 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
"Quest" (Freddie Widgeon) – 1931 magazine story rewritten as "The Knightly Quest of Mervyn" (Mr Mulliner, non-Drones story, still featuring Oofy Prosser)
"The Ordeal of Bingo Little" (Bingo Little) – 1954 magazine story rewritten as "Leave It to Algy"[13] (Bingo Little, included above)
"Unpleasantness at Kozy Kot" (Drone Dudley "Biffy" Wix-Biffen) – 1958 "exclusive" story recycled[14] 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)
Most of the Drones short stories are also "Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets stories". These stories feature unnamed club members, each referred to as an "Egg", "Bean", or "Crumpet". This is allegedly based on the habit they have of addressing each other as "old egg", "old bean", or "my dear old crumpet", though characters in the stories almost never address other characters by these nicknames.[15] A few later stories introduce a fourth subset of Drones Club members known as "Piefaces".
Many of the Drones Club stories begin with these nondescript members 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 narrating the story as he tells it 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.
The total number of members is not established. At the Drones Club weekend in Le Touquet, France, were "about 87 members",[16] and not all of them crossed the Channel (such as Pongo Twistleton and Horace Pendlebury-Davenport).
"Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets" (unknown narrator(s) and various nondescript members)
Dudley "Biffy" Wix-Biffen (exists only in a non-canon, recycled story[14])
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 1930s.
A "Drones" restaurant existed in the early 1970s in London at 1 Pont Street off Knightsbridge.[20] Previously a burger-and-fries, in November 2000 it was turned into a gastronomic restaurant by new owner and restaurateur Marco Pierre White.[21] This "Drones Club" moved to 12 St. George Street in Mayfair,[22] and 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.[citation needed]
Another "Drones" restaurant, aka "Drones Fenwick of Bond Street", exists in London inside the Fenwick department store at 63 New Bond Street.[23] It was linked to "The Drones Club" above.
Wodehouse (2008) [1974], Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, chapter 4, p. 23. Aunt Dahlia and Bertie Wooster: "'Don't wear the Drones Club tie.' 'Certainly not,' I agreed. If the Drones Club tie has a fault, it is a little on the loud side and should not be sprung suddenly on nervous people and invalids, and I had no means of knowing if Mrs. Briscoe was one of these".
Wodehouse (2008) [1974], Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, chapter 19, p. 170. Bertie Wooster narrates: "I should have mentioned that in the course of these exchanges Cook's complexion had been steadily deepening. It now looked like a Drones Club tie, which is a rich purple. There was talk at one time of having it crimson with white spots, but the supporters of that view were outvoted".
Wodehouse (2008) [1974], Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, chapter 1, p. 15. Bertie describes advising Orlo Porter to put on the scarf: "I directed his attention to the Drones Club scarf lying on the seat, at the same time handing him my hat. He put them on, and the rude disguise proved effective".
Alexander-Sinclair, Ian (report) (2007). "Bertie Wooster's Mayfair". Norman Murphy's talk at Wodehouse Week 2007 (The PGW Society UK). Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Norman [Murphy] explained that Dover Street was the street of new clubs in the 1920s and 30s. So here Wodehouse found the ideal site for the fictional Drones Club, originally based on the real Bachelors' Club, but subsequently the source of the Drones was transferred to Buck's Club, founded in 1919 by Herbert Buckmaster in nearby Clifford Street. Buck's had by then replaced the Bachelors' as the young man's club. But the Drones Club's swimming pool, complete with its notorious ropes and rings, was taken from the Bath Club, also in Dover Street, at Number 34, amongst whose founders was one of Wodehouse's many uncles. Tuppy Glossop's mean trick on Bertie of looping back the last ring "causing me to plunge into the swimming b. in the full soup and fish" (i.e., full evening dress) was based on fact – it happened all the time in the Bath Club pool.
Ring, Tony (October 1999). "Life of P G Wodehouse". Wooster Sauce, the Journal of The PG Wodehouse Society UK (at Wodehouse.ru). Archived from the original on 29 September 2007.
Stone-Tolcher, Charles (29 June 2006). "Re: The Ordeal of Bingo Little". alt.fan.wodehouse Usenet thread. Archived from the original on 21 July 2007. – First-hand information posted by a Wodehouse fan.
There is at least one story with exceptions. In "The Shadow Passes", Bingo calls his friend Valerie Twistleton "old crumpet", and he calls fellow Drones Club member Horace Pendlebury-Davenport "old egg".
Stiffham's membership is disputed (Reggie, op. cit.), but his short story "The Luck of the Stiffhams" is part of the omnibus canon (Hutchinson/London, op. cit.).
