Clubs as we know them are typically British institutions brought to India by its British rulers before independence. The early days of refusal of entry to Indians, women and dogs, have given way to an altogether more egalitarian, cosmopolitan ethos post-independence, though some of our more elite clubs did not admit natives until well into the 1960s.
The early British settlers in Madras were traders who spent much of their time in factories. All the recreation they had was in all-male company, in dining rooms, taverns and coffee houses.
The traders often amused themselves with card games, and billiards gradually grew popular. Governor Thomas Pitt developed the island next to
the fort as an amusement park with avenue walkways and bowling lawns. While indoor games like billiards were popular in India during the 17th and 18th centuries, the more vigorous of the company men took to shooting and archery, as well as hunting and riding. In the 18th Century, riding became the premier sport in India.
By the second half of the 18th Century, the British were emerging as the sole European power in India, ready to put down roots in Madras as elsewhere in India. The traders were now turning rulers, and had little time for recreation. The Madras Public Assembly Rooms came into being towards the end of the 18th Century. The Pantheon, a garden house then in Egmore, and now part of the Madras Museum on Pantheon Road, housed them in 1793.
By the dawn of the 19th Century, India became an acceptable destination for the women ‘back home’ to join their men or sail forth to fi nd future husbands. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 facilitated this process further.
The Madras Public Assembly Rooms, with a ballroom, cardrooms and theatre, were the venue of monthly assemblies, balls, musical soirees and functions to felicitate heroes and public fi gures like
Lord Cornwallis and Col Arthur Wellesley, later the Dukeof Wellington.
The Pantheon’s popularity began to wane and it had to be wound up by 1930. Signifi cantly, the Madras Club was founded around this time and started functioning in 1932.
Later clubs included the Madras Cricket Club (1846), which offered cricket, hockey, squash and tennis, the Madras Boat Club (1867), the home of rowing, the Adyar Club (1890),now merged with the Madras Club, the Madras Gymkhana Club (1895) which offered both codes of football, soccer and rugby, as well as golf, and the Royal Madras Yacht Club (1911).
The Madras Club pioneered squash, tennis and swimming, the fi rst ‘swimming bath’ in the South being built at the club. Its membership ran racing and polo in Madras for several decades till the founding of the Madras Race Club (1896).
The ‘Europeans Only’ clubs introduced British games to the South, and helped spread sport amongst the Indian population.
The Madras Club continues to be the most exclusive club of Chennai. It is also perhaps the city’s most formal institution of its kind, with formal western clothing de rigueur within most of the club’s precincts. Slow to admit Indian members even after independence, the club unbent to admit women members only in 1999. The ‘Ace of Clubs’ in India as it has been known for a long time, the Madras Club offers members tennis, swimming, billiards, a jogging track, and an excellent library strong on Indian books. Its swimming pool and surroundings set in a vast acreage in the heart of Madras are among its chief attractions. Overlooking the swimmingpool is an excellent gymnasium, less than two decades old.
The Madras Gymkhana Club, originally a club for the garrison officers of the British army, started admitting civilians in 1920. Today the membership is largely civilian, though the grounds are defence property and army offi cers have a mandatory presence there as patrons. The club is famous for the 18-hole golf course at the golf annexe near Guindy. The golf annexe has its own membership and facilities. Tennis, swimming and billiards are other popular activities at the Gymkhana Club.
The Cosmopolitan Club, founded in 1873, to enable Indians to stand up to the Europeans, so to speak, is also housed at present on Mount Road or Anna Salai, not far from the Madras Club’s fi rst home and almost half way towards the Gymkhana Club (established 1884), further up Mount Road, on the southeastern corner of the Island. The Presidency Club, on Commander-in-Chief Road, within shouting distance of the former home of the Madras Club, opened in 1929, as an alternative to Cosmopolitan, which had by now acquired a reputation of being elitist.
The Cosmopolitan Club has a very large membership. Its 18-hole golf course at Saidapet is a very popular venue, as is the main club, which offers tennis, squash, swimming and a good library. As in most of the other clubs, the cardroom and bar are big draws.
The Madras Cricket Club, founded in 1846, is the best sporting club in the city and state. Cricket, hockey, tennis, squash and billiards/ snooker have been strong activities in the club from the beginning, and the Chepauk ground, the home of the club, is an international cricket venue highly regarded everywhere. MCC is where organised cricket began in Madras and for nearly a century, the club was the offi cial body administering the game in the city, until the Madras Cricket Association came into being. The club and the present Tamil Nadu Cricket Association coexist at the same ground, though it is sometimes an uneasy coexistence.
The Presidency Club, Railway Offi cers Club, Madras Race Club, Royal Madras Yacht Club, Madras Boat Club, Ladies Recreation Club, Mylapore Club, SVS Club, Andhra Club, T Nagar Club, and Gandhinagar Club are some of the other prominent clubs of Madras.