DRIVING CLUBS, OLD AND NEW. 251 



B.D.C., and there it was that the club had its wine-cellar, 

 a circumstance which may or may not have prompted a 

 chronicler of the time to say, when describing one of the visits 

 to Bedfont, that the members ' dashed home in a style of speed 

 and splendour equal to the spirit and judgment (sic) displayed 

 by the noble, honourable, and respective drivers.' During its 

 early years the B. D.C. was colloquially known as the Black 

 and White Club, owing to the places of meeting being the 

 White Hart and the Black Dog. 



Before the B.D.C. had been established for a year, the 

 Benevolent Whip Club came into existence. It has been 

 said that the Bensington Driving Club men founded it ; but 

 such was not the case. A dozen well-to-do professionals, anxious 

 for the interests of their less fortunate brethren, conceived the 

 idea of establishing a benefit society ; and their deliberations 

 took the form of the Benevolent Whip Club, whose object it 

 was to relieve coachmen and guards, when in distress, and to 

 allow i2s. per week to the families of those who wereSn prison 

 for debt. To the funds of this society the B.D.C. contributed 

 one hundred guineas, and its resources would appear to have 

 been subject to a heavy drain, as, in twenty years, grants to 

 the amount of 9,ooo/. were made to needy men, and the families 

 of those who found themselves in prison. When this club was 

 dissolved cannot be discovered ; but its modern representa- 

 tive is the Cabdrivers' Benevolent Association. 



The prestige which immediately surrounded the original 

 driving club caused applications for membership to flow in ; 

 but it was decided not to exceed the number of 25, so in 

 1808, Mr. Charles Buxton, the inventor of the Buxton bit, 

 together with one or two of his friends, were instrumental 

 in founding a second society, called the Four-Horse Club, but 

 often, though erroneously, known as the Four-in-Hand Club, 

 the Whip Club, and the Barouche Club. It no doubt re- 

 ceived the last-named appellation owing to the fact that its 

 members drove a sort of barouche. In the Sporting Magazine 

 for February, 1809, under the heading 'Carriages for the 



