Drones Club


The Drones Club is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British humorist P. G. Wodehouse|. It is a gentlemen's club in London. Many of Wodehouse's Jeeves and Blandings Castle stories feature the club or its members.
Various members of the club appear in stories included in the "Drones Club series", which contains stories not already included in other series. Most of the Drones Club stories star either Freddie Widgeon or Bingo Little. The club is initially introduced as a minor element in Wodehouse's 1920 novel Jill the Reckless; it subsequently appears with more prominence across many Wodehouse stories and novels. The Drones Club makes its final appearance as a setting in 1972's Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin.
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 of its own and lives off the labour of others, it aptly describes the late 1920s to early 1930s stereotype of rich, idle young men, though some of the club members have jobs and even careers.
As decided by a vote of the club's members, the Drones Club tie is a striking "rich purple". A Drones Club scarf is also mentioned.
Wodehouse based the Drones Club on a combination of three real London clubs: the Bachelors' Club, Buck's Club, 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. However Evelyn Waugh declared that the Drones did not resemble any real club in 1920s London.
A real club has been based at 40 Dover Street since 1893, The Arts Club. Other gentlemen's clubs which have existed on Dover Street but are now dissolved include the Bath Club, the Junior Naval and Military Club, and the Scottish Club, as well as two mixed-sex clubs, the Albemarle Club and the Empress Club. None of these were considered among London's 'premier' clubs of the kind found on St James's Street and Pall Mall, and so their ambience often had something of the raucous informality of the fictional Drones Club.
About a dozen club members are major or secondary recurring characters in the Wodehouse stories. In addition to Bertie Wooster, Pongo Twistleton, Rupert Psmith, and Freddie Threepwood, prominent recurring drones include Bingo Little and Freddie Widgeon, plus Monty Bodkin, Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps, Tuppy Glossop, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, Archibald Mulliner, and the club millionaire Oofy Prosser.

Events

  • The Drones Club annual Golf tournament: A yearly golf handicap tournament that was held one year at Bingley-on-Sea.
  • The Drones Club Squash Handicap: A yearly squash tournament. One year, Bertie Wooster was runner-up.
  • The Drones Club Darts Tournament: An annual darts sweepstakes tournament held in February. Instead of taking part themselves, members purchase tickets for 10 shillings and each draw the name of one actual participant. The tournament is then held, and the member holding the name of the champion wins the jackpot.
  • The Drones Club Fat Uncles Sweep: An annual sweepstakes contest introduced by Freddie Widgeon. Members enter their uncles in the contest and each draw the name of one uncle at random. Later, on the first day of the Eton v Harrow match, the members bring their uncles to the Drones Club for lunch. McGarry, having the uncanny ability to estimate the weight of anything to an ounce by sight, estimates the weight of each uncle and determines the fattest one. The member holding that name wins the jackpot, which exceeded £100 the first year the contest was run. A later rule change stipulates that £50 of the jackpot money is awarded to the nephew of the winning uncle.

    Stories

Among the Wodehouse works, what was later dubbed the "Drones Club series" is a loose set of separate stories told by various narrators about members of the Drones Club. Many of the stories are told at the club or have some events happening at the club.
; Main canon
The main canon consists of 21 short stories, as eventually collected in the omnibus:
  • Tales from the Drones Club later The Drones Omnibus
The same set of short stories is also available in their original collections:
  • Collected in Young Men in Spats
  • * "Fate"
  • * "Tried in the Furnace"
  • * "Trouble Down at Tudsleigh"
  • * "The Amazing Hat Mystery"
  • * "Goodbye to All Cats"
  • * "The Luck of the Stiffhams"
  • * "Noblesse Oblige"
  • * "Uncle Fred Flits By"
  • Collected in Lord Emsworth and Others
  • * "The Masked Troubadour"
  • Collected in Eggs, Beans and Crumpets
  • * "All's Well with Bingo"
  • * "Bingo and the Peke Crisis"
  • * "The Editor Regrets"
  • * "Sonny Boy"
  • Collected in Nothing Serious
  • * "The Shadow Passes"
  • * "Bramley Is So Bracing"
  • Collected in A Few Quick Ones
  • * "The Fat of the Land"
  • * "The Word in Season"
  • * "Leave it to Algy"
  • * "Oofy, Freddie and the Beef Trust"
  • Collected in Plum Pie
  • * "Bingo Bans the Bomb"
  • * "Stylish Stouts"
; Additional novels
Six novels about the adventures of Drones Club Members as main protagonist:
  • Money for Nothing – novel about Hugo Carmody and Ronnie Fish
  • The Luck of the Bodkins – novel about Monty Bodkin with Reggie Tennyson
  • Laughing Gas – novel about Reginald Swithin
  • Barmy in Wonderland – novel about Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps
  • Ice in the Bedroom – novel about Freddie Widgeon with Oofy Prosser
  • Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin – novel about Monty Bodkin
; Related stories
Related are all stories about those Drones Club members already part of another series, but more especially:
  • The Inimitable Jeeves – Jeeves semi-novel, Bertie and Bingo, some events at the club
  • Leave it to Psmith – Psmith and Blandings novel, also Freddie Threepwood, some events at the club
  • Collected in Mr Mulliner Speaking
  • * "The Reverent Wooing of Archibald" – Archibald Mulliner and Algy Wymondham-Wymondham, starts at the club, told by Mr Mulliner
  • Summer Lightning – Blandings novel with Hugo Carmody and Ronnie Fish
  • Heavy Weather – Blandings novel with Hugo Carmody and Ronnie Fish, also Monty Bodkin, some events at the club
  • Collected in Young Men in Spats
  • * "Archibald and the Masses" – Archibald Mulliner, told by Mr Mulliner
  • * "The Code of the Mulliners" – Archibald Mulliner, told by Mr Mulliner
  • Uncle Fred in the Springtime – Uncle Fred and Blandings novel, action started by Pongo, Horace, and Oofy at the club
  • Cocktail Time – Uncle Fred novel, some events with Pongo at the club
  • "Life with Freddie" in Plum Pie – Freddie Threepwood, some events with the club's barman
; Relatable story
Relatable is one story, which features the club and a Drone as a secondary character, and marks the first mention of the Drones Club:
  • Jill the Reckless – novel, Drone Algy Martyn as secondary character, one chapter at the club
Many more stories simply include a Drones member in some scenes, or have mentions of club members.
; Not included
Not included are all identical stories published under other titles, or "recycled" stories, especially:
  • "Comrade Bingo" and "Bingo and the Little Woman" – 1922 magazine stories merged into the semi-novel The Inimitable Jeeves
  • "Quest" – 1931 magazine story rewritten as "The Knightly Quest of Mervyn"
  • "The Ordeal of Bingo Little" – 1954 magazine story rewritten as "Leave It to Algy"
  • "Unpleasantness at Kozy Kot" – 1958 "exclusive" story recycled for the U.S. edition of A Few Quick Ones from "Fixing it for Freddie"
  • "The Great Fat Uncle Contest" – 1965 magazine rewrite of "Stylish Stouts"

    Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets

Most of the Drones short stories are also "Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets stories". These stories feature unnamed club members, each referred to as an "Egg", "Bean", or "Crumpet". This is allegedly based on the habit they have of addressing each other as "old egg", "old bean", or "my dear old crumpet", though characters in the stories almost never address other characters by these nicknames. A few later stories introduce a fourth subset of Drones Club members known as "Piefaces".
Many of the Drones Club stories begin with these nondescript members talking about the latest exploits of Freddie Widgeon, Pongo Twistleton, Bingo Little, or another of their number. The story then transitions into a particularly well-informed Crumpet narrating the story as he tells it to an uninformed Egg or Bean:
Wodehouse had already used this technique in the stories told by his Mr Mulliner, who refers to his anonymous interlocutors by the name of their drink.

Members

The total number of members is not established. At the Drones Club weekend in Le Touquet, France, were "about 87 members", and not all of them crossed the Channel.
; Confirmed Drones members include
; Possible Drones members include
; Club staff includes
  • Bates
  • McGarry
  • Robinson
; Virtual Drones members include
  • "Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets"
  • Dudley "Biffy" Wix-Biffen