What did Samuel Johnson Joshua Reynolds do at 9 Gerrard Street?

The Story

# 9 Gerrard Street Standing before the Turk's Head Tavern on this narrow Soho street in 1764, Dr. Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds made a decision that would reshape English intellectual life: they founded The Club, a society dedicated to candid conversation among the finest minds of the age. What began as an informal gathering of nine men—including Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, and David Garrick—in this modest tavern's back room would evolve into one of London's most prestigious institutions, one that still meets today after more than 250 years. Here, in the smoke and warmth of the tavern, Johnson and Reynolds created a sanctuary where wit could flourish without pretense, where a painter, a lexicographer, an actor, and a philosopher could meet as equals, and where the conversation was as carefully crafted as any painting or dictionary. For Reynolds, this was the birth of his most cherished circle of friends; for Johnson, it was the realization of his vision of urbane fellowship; and for the Club itself, Gerrard Street became its origin story—the humble tavern room where genius learned to gather.