Group    From 22/6/1870 

Pickwick Bicycle Club

The oldest surviving cycling club in the world was founded at Downs Hotel, during the craze for the newly evolving bicycle, just 2 weeks after Charles Dickens died. The founding members honoured him, as many other societies had done, by adopting the eponymous name from his first, and very successful novel, 'The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'.

From Timeline (2020 link dead): "... Well, in 1870 six Hackney men had taken their shiny new bicycles out to the country for a ride. That evening, they sat in The Downs Hotel. As they chatted on about this new craze, they decided they would start up a bicycle club. There was a long talk about what they should call their new club.

Suddenly someone came up with the idea "The Pickwick Bicycle Club": Charles Dickens, the author of The Pickwick Papers, had just died and people were feeling very sad about that, so all six of the men agreed on the new name. They made a rule that all the members of the club would have a nickname chosen from Charles Dickens’ book - and that the club uniform would be "simply a white straw hat with a black and amber ribbon".

The Club was a huge success - they went on rides out to the countryside every weekend, enjoying their cycling long after the new inventions came in one by one (the car, the aeroplane, the motorbike .....).

Now, 137 years later, the Pickwick Bicycle Club is STILL going strong (men only - with a very long waiting list). The Club, started in Hackney all those years ago, is proud to be the oldest bicycle club in the whole world. They still keep to the same rules - wearing the hats and the nicknames from the book."

Book: 'History of the Pickwick Bicycle Club' by Walter E. Blake.

2020: Club still going strong.

2022: Ian Visits, reporting on an exhibition at the Charles Dickens Museum, includes a photograph of the front cover of the Members Register of the Pickwick Bicycle Club, 1909 - 1926. This gives two addresses for their HQ: 9(?) Rathbone Place and 18 Eldon Street, suggesting that the club moved during the period that the register covers.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Pickwick Bicycle Club

Commemorated ati

Pickwick Bicycle Club

Hackney Citizen 25 June 2014 gives the history of the club and explains "A co...

Read More

Other Subjects

Stanley Hall & Baths

Stanley Hall & Baths

From the splendid Acland Burgley School history site we learn that the Honourable E. Lyulph Stanley (1839-1925 and son of Lady Stanley) was an energetic member of the London School Board with speci...

Building, Community / Clubs, Education, Sport / Games

1 memorial
Blitz Club

Blitz Club

A Tuesday night club that attracted students from two nearby art colleges: Central School and St Martins.  Some claim it was the birthplace of New Romanticism.

Group, Community / Clubs, Music / songs

1 memorial
Dulwich Society

Dulwich Society

"Our objects are to create the sense of community that one would hope to find in a good village, to increase awareness of local history and the character that make Dulwich special, to foster an app...

Group, Community / Clubs

3 memorials
Overseas League

Overseas League

The Royal Over-Seas League was founded in 1910 by Sir Evelyn Wrench to foster international understanding and friendship.

Group, Community / Clubs

1 memorial
The Old Justice

The Old Justice

The picture source says: "An Old Justice pub has been on the site for at least the mid 1850s and the name probably refers to the old justices of the peace, who often had businesses in the area as w...

Place, Community / Clubs, Food & Drink

1 memorial

Previously viewed

C. J. Cubberley

C. J. Cubberley

Resident of Hendon who served and died in WW2.

Person, Armed Forces

War dead, WW2
1 memorial
Simon Barber

Simon Barber

Mural painter. See Mick Jones.

Person, Art

1 memorial
Harry Bates

Harry Bates

Sculptor.  Born Stevenage.  the picture source gives a good bio, and has photos of some of his work included the ornate corbels at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Great Swan Alley, Moorga...

Person, Sculpture

1 memorial
H. C. Edwards

H. C. Edwards

Name on one of the main panels of the East Ham WW1 memorial.

Person

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
Michael Sandle

Michael Sandle

Born Weymouth.  2016 in-depth interview in 3rd Dimension, where Sandle says "the figure {on the seafarers memorial} ended up looking like my father."

Person, Sculpture

1 memorial