Drones Club

The Drones Club is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. It is a gentlemen's club in London. Many of his Jeeves and Blandings Castle stories feature the club or its members.

The name "Drones" has been used by several real-life clubs and restaurants.

Overview

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 contemporary Edwardian stereotype of rich, idle young club members. At the same time, though, it should be pointed out that many prominent members had useful occupations. Pongo Twistleton, for example, was reading for the Bar, and other members were mentioned as holding down jobs.

Wodehouse based the Drones Club on a combination of three real London clubs: the Bachelors' Club (existed around the turn of the century), then mostly 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.