History of the Club

Founded in 1863, the Royal Marines Officers’ Dinner Club is one of the oldest military dining clubs.  We know from the diaries of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Lean RMLI, the names of the 63 officers who attended the first dinner which was held at Willis’s Rooms in King Street, St James’s.    The next known dinner was recorded in the first edition of the ‘Globe & Laurel’, issued in 1892 and was held in the Whitehall Rooms of the Hotel Metropole on 9 June 1892.   At this time the annual subscription was mentioned as being 5 shillings. This remained unchanged until 1967 when it was raised to 10 shillings.   HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, an honorary member, attended dinners in 1984 and 2008.