First Thursday

The First Thursday is the best generic name for the London, UK fan meetings held on the first Thursday of every month since 1959 albeit with a continuous lineage back to 1946 and a prehistory extending further to 1937. This allows multiple opportunities for anniversaries but the meeting is generally taken to date from March 1946.

Early meetings were under the auspices of the fairly informal London Circle but that club disbanded in 1959 and the meetings have continued without any sponsoring body or any real organisation. It's misleading to think of it as a club – for all that it's categorised as such in Fancyclopedia 3 – as it has none of the usual structures that implies. There are no dues, no rules and no members and no officers. Meetings are entirely informal aside from the very occasional announcement. Decision-making to the extent that it's ever necessary arises out of some anarchic collective.

The venue has inevitably changed many times over nearly eighty years, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes forced by circumstances.

As well as the name "First Thursday", meetings are also referred to by the name or nickname of the current or a previous venue. Some people continue to refer to it as "The Tun" decades after the meeting moved on from the One Tun, just as during the One Tun era old hands would call it "The Globe" The term London Circle is still used by some but again that is misleading as even though some clung to the name after the formal disbandment in 1959 it certainly had no meaningful existence after 1967.

While meetings happen on the first Thursday of the month, there are exceptions. The January meeting is sometimes on the second Thursday, sometimes through choice and sometimes through circumstances as in January 2025 when the pub was closed on January 2. An additional Christmas meeting is held, currently on the third Thursday of December. Reference the earlier point about the name, it is invariably referred to as the Christmas Tun. Additional meetings may be declared for specifics purposes, historically to coincide with a visit from some eminent celebrity or as a precursor to some external event such as a convention.

Prehistory

The earliest meetings date back to 1937, with Thursdays supposedly being chosen because Ted Carnell had a half-day off work. Venues were the J. Lyons teashop on New Oxford Street, with occasional switches to the Express Dairy. From August 1938, meetings move to "The Flat", home of Arthur C. Clarke, Maurice Hanson and William Temple with a breakaway group of non-teetotallers at the nearby Red Bull. This continued until December 1939 when the fan inhabitants vacated The Flat. Meetings continued at the Red Bull until October 1940. The pub was destroyed in an air raid on April 16, 1941.

The White Horse

• Location: Fetter Lane, EC4
• Period: March 1946–December 1953
• Exception: March 1946: The Shamrock, also Fetter Lane.

The first post-War meeting was held in a pub called the Shamrock on Fetter Lane in March 1946 but from April the group moved to the larger White Horse across the street. Meetings were at this point weekly and the group came to be known as the London Circle. Attendees included Arthur C. Clarke who fictionalised the pub as the White Hart in his collection Tales from the White Hart (1957). He also relocated the pub to a different part of London and moved the meetings to Wednesday.

At some point a visitors book was started and maintained by Frank Arnold. Sadly, this is now believed lost.

As well as the Thursday meetings, the White Horse also hosted the 1948 Whitcon, now considered the first of the Eastercon series, and the preliminary sessions for Festivention in 1951, the London SF Con in 1952, and Coroncon in 1953.

The landlord was Lew Mordecai, a popular figure with fans although not a fan himself.

• Current status: the pub was closed and demolished in mid-1989.

The Globe

• Location: Hatton Garden, EC1
• Period: December 1953–June 1974

Mordecai was transferred to a new pub and on December 3, 1953 the weekly meetings followed him to the Globe, thinly disguised as the Sphere in the Clarke collection. This was to be the longest-lasting venue, hosting the London meetings for over 20 years. While occasionally well-attended, for example just before Loncon in 1957, numbers were dwindling throughout the 1950s. In April 1959 the London Circle fixed the first Thursday of the month as the main social meeting, but by the end of the year the group had disbanded. First Thursday meetings continued.

The meeting in December 1973 was "absolutely packed" according to Checkpoint 44 (also December 1973) as it marked the twentieth anniversary, but fans also learned that the pub was to close for redevelopment. The final official meeting was in June 6, 1974, with an extra on June 12 to welcome Isaac Asimov.

• Current status: the pub was scheduled to be demolished in 1974. The site has certainly been redeveloped.

The One Tun

• Location: Saffron Hill, EC1
• Period: July 1974–January 1987

The fiftieth anniversary of the move to the One Tun largely slipped by 2024 fandom, for all that a surprising number of the then current attendees first came to the meeting during this period. The One Tun, only a short distance from the Globe, was located and proposed by John Brunner. It wasn't (and isn't) an especially large pub – although Darroll Pardoe writing in Checkpoint 54 said the floor area was greater than the Globe – but meetings grew huge during this time, attracting hundreds of people. According to Rob Hansen they were "undoubtedly the largest regular monthly meetings of any fan group in the world"(see "Tales from the White Horse" below). The meetings weren't however homogenous and rather resembled several associated groups meeting in the same place at the same time. The pub quickly filled up on meeting nights with attendees spilling out into the street outside. The pavement isn't wide so it's fortunate that Saffron Hill has virtually no traffic.

In June 1979 Frank Arnold started a new visitors book. This is now held by Rob Hansen.

Margaret Austin's and Martin Easterbrook's monthly 2-page newszine Small Mammal was distributed at meetings from 1976 and at some point seemingly between 1976 and 1980 the idea of the Christmas Tun came into being. This is an additional December meeting, initially on the Thursday before Christmas and later on the third Thursday in December. The meeting also inspired a "Northern Tun" in the West Riding Hotel in Leeds from early 1979. At the September 1985 meeting Malcolm Edwards delivered Dave Langford's first Hugo to him.

However, crowding was an issue and some breakaway groups were forming in the mid-1980s. The dating is a little unclear but this possibly includes the Doctor Who fans, some of whom started meeting at the Fitzroy Tavern in Soho.

In January 1987, and as documented in Ansible 48, there was an Incident. The landlord took exception to the behaviour of two fans and banned them. Attendees did not take kindly to this and the meeting relocated the following month. The Frank Arnold visitors book stops on January 8, 1987. There seems a certain inevitability that the last signature is unclear.

• Current status: the oldest of the First Thursday pubs that remains extant, albeit substantially refitted.

(Third Thursday alternative) The Banker

Location: Cousin Lane, EC4 Period: January 1987 – ?

An undated issue Small Mammal, from context likely late 1986, ended with a news flash:

To help relieve overcrowding at "Tun" meetings it has been suggested that an alternate meeting be held on the third Thursday of the month. The first such meeting will be in The Banker, Dalgate Hills, Cannon St. 6.30pm Jan 15.

The address was rather 'Dowgate Hill' and maybe even more properly its continuation, Cousin Lane. The first such meeting was on January 15, 1987, by coincidence falling between the last of the One Tun meetings and the first at the Wellington. How many meetings there were isn't clear but likely not many. It may be that the "overcrowding" problem was to an extent resolved by the move to the much larger Wellington.

• Current status: the Banker remains in business as of 2024.

The Wellington

• Location: Waterloo Road, SE1
• Period: February 1987– February 1997
• Exception: November 1992– April 1993: Hamilton Hall, Liverpool Street, EC2

The Wellington was London fandom's first foray south of the River Thames and had already been used for Friends in Space meetings. The pub was opposite Waterloo Station, hence the name, although as Dave Langford noted in Ansible 48, "In the darkness of a winter evening it's remarkable how many hundreds of square miles of London turn out to be opposite Waterloo." Its name allowed some people to justify the continued use of the name "the Tun" albeit now spelled "the Ton".

Not everybody made the move. White Horse veteran Frank Arnold remained at the One Tun and members of the ZZ9 group continued to meet there for a couple of months although only because the venue had been advertised in their newsletter and in the pre-internet era it wasn't easy to spread the news of the change. Ansible 49 (April 1987) reported that Bernie Peek had started a new visitors book.

The pub was significantly larger than the One Tun with fans using both the main public bars. Small Mammal was still distributed at meetings, joined by the Fans Across the World newsletter from November 1990 and the second series of Ansible from October 1991. Other shorter-lived publications handed out at meetings included The Intermediate Reptile from 1989 and Beer Cat Scratching from 1993. A refurbishment in September 1992 led fans to seek an alternative and after considering various options the meetings lighted on Hamilton Hall near Liverpool Street station, but this wasn't wholly satisfactory and the meeting returned to the Wellington in April 1993, remaining until February 1997 by which point there was a general feeling that the pub was too crowded with Other People.

• Current status: the Wellington remains in business and as of 2024 is not significantly changed.

The Jubilee

• Location: York Road, London SE1
• Period: March 1997–January 1999

Some fans were already familiar with the Jubilee. The BSFA had been using the venue since 1994 and its landlord, Kevin, was known to be fan friendly. It was much smaller than the Wellington but the meeting was offered the use, free of charge, of an upstairs room. This wasn't large enough for the meeting but did provide overflow space. However, after less than two years, and in an echo of Lew Mordecai, Kevin was transferred to a nearby larger pub and the fan meeting followed.

• Current status: the pub was closed in 2007 and demolished in 2008. It now seems to be offices.

The Florence Nightingale

• Location: Westminster Bridge Road, SE1
• Period: February 1999– June 2002
• Exception: September 1999 – October 1999: The Jubilee (as above)

The Florence Nightingale, known as "The Flo" or less tastefully "The Dead Nurse", was a much larger pub with a much larger room, the latter able to hold the whole meeting, and arguably this set the expectation of private rooms rather than the public bar for future venues. The pub was briefly vacated for two months in 1999 for redecoration. In November 2001 the regular distribution of paper copies of Ansible ceased after 10 years without missing a month. Kevin moved on again in December 2001 and his new pub wasn't really suitable for the meeting as it was too far out of central London. The new management were initially happy to allow the free use of the room but in June 2002 there was an Incident, leading to the arrangement being withdrawn. In July 2002 the meeting revisited the Jubilee but from August 2002 it recrossed the Thames.

• Current status: see below.

The Silver Cross

• Location: Whitehall, SW1
• Period: August 2002– February 2003

The Silver Cross was another large pub with the potential of a downstairs bar for the meeting from September onwards. However, in October technical difficulties meant the pub were unable to serve most drinks – some still recall Noel Collyer walking around with a bottle of red wine and a straw – and the hunt was soon on for a new venue. A consensus was slow to emerge but falling numbers made the venue unsustainable.

• Current status: the pub remains in business.

The Barley Mow

• Location: Long Lane, EC1
• Period: March 2003– February 2004

The Barley Mow was smaller but once again offered fans the free use of an upstairs room as they'd come to expect. However, this room often proved to be booked out to somebody else or closed.

• Current status: the pub was permanently closed as of 2009. As of 2024 it's a café.

The Florence Nightingale (again)

• Location: Westminster Bridge Road, SE1
• Period: March 2004– January 2005

The meeting returned to the Florence Nightingale where the new management seemed to have at least decided to tolerate the fan presence. However in February 2005 – and rather to everybody's surprise – the pub was found to be closed. The meeting relocated to the Jubilee again and to the Silver Cross for March but a new venue was found for April.

• Current status: the pub was closed for demolition in February 2005. The building remained until at least 2010, but it's not there now and the site appears empty.

Walkers of Holborn

• Location: Norwich Street, EC4
• Period: April 2005– November 2005
• Exception: July 2005: The Printers Devil (as Walkers was, in common with many other venues, closed in the immediate aftermath of the July 7 terrorist attacks in London)

Walkers of Holborn wasn't especially large but did have a substantial cellar bar that the fans were able to use. It was also very close to the site of White Horse, and reportedly was built as a replacement for it when the main site was turned into offices. In May 2005 Tony Cullen produced a map, published in Banana Wings 22, showing the movement of the meeting around London. Sadly, joining the dots didn't reveal a pattern in the shape of a giant beanie but seemed rather to give the impression that somebody had scribbled on a map of central London.

An extra meeting was held on August 1, 2005, in advance of Interaction, the 2005 Worldcon in Glasgow. However, fans were surprised to learn in mid-November that the bar had been closed for development as a wine bar. The nearby Melton Mowbray was tried in December and deemed acceptable.

• Current status: the pub became a wine bar in early 2006. It doesn't seem to be there now.

The Melton Mowbray/The Inn of Court

• Location: Holborn, EC1
• Period: December 2005– March 2016
• Exception: Christmas 2005: The Goose, Leather Lane EC1 (due to a prior booking)
• Exception: April 2006: The Printers Devil, Fetter Lane EC4 (due to a double-booking)
• Exception: May and June 2015: The Castle, Cowcross Street, EC1 (due to refurbishment)

The Melton Mowbray was bigger and again offered a basement bar for the fans' exclusive use and also allowed some to claim that meetings were once more at "the Ton" by ignoring three-quarters of the pub's name. After the December 2005 try-out, the Christmas meeting relocated as a one-off to the nearby the Goose due to a prior booking. There was an extra meeting on August 21, 2014, for visitors still around after Loncon III. It was the most stable venue since the Wellington in the 1990s but after its summer 2015 refurbishment, and a two month displacement for the meeting, the pub was renamed The Inn of Court and from April 2016 they would no longer allow exclusive use of the cellar bar leading to another move.

• Current status: the pub was closed and boarded up as of 2022.

The Bishop's Finger

• Location: West Smithfield, EC1A
• Period: April 2016 onwards
• Exception: April 2020–August 2021 and December 2021– February 2022: virtual

The Bishop's Finger was a smaller pub, although again with an upstairs room available free of charge.

With the start of the first national Covid lockdown the meeting switched to a Zoom-driven virtual format in April 2020. In-person meetings resumed in September 2021 but stopped again in December, resuming in February 2022. A parallel third Thursday meeting, styled by some the Second First Thursday, continues virtually.

Links

• Dave Langford's "Ansible on London SF Meetings" with much current information and history at news.ansible.uk.
• "Tales from the White Horse" by Rob Hansen at fiawol.org.uk.

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Club

1946—

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