The Myrmidon Club is a dining club elected from the members of Merton College, Oxford, and with a continuous history exceeding 150 years. Until recently, the club was single-sex, and an equivalent club for women, named the Myrmaids, was established following the college's decision to admit women students in 1980. It is now a mixed-gender society.

History

Founded in 1865, it is one of the handful of such clubs with an almost continuous existence from the second half of the 19th century. In the earlier years of its existence it had its own rooms off the High. Describing Lord Randolph Churchill's membership of the Club towards the end of the 1860s, T.H.S. Escott wrote: L. E. Jones in his memoir described a dinner which (as a member of Balliol) he attended as a guest in his first term. He drank 24 glasses of port, was rescued from the shrubbery and was carried to bed by his friends:

Traditions

The club takes its name from the legendary warriors commanded by Achilles, as described in Homer's Iliad. The Club has storage facilities in College, but in common with similar college dining societies is intermittently out of favour with the college authorities. Its colours are purple, gold and silver. Members wear ties with stripes of these colours.

Popular references

The Club is thought to be the model for the Junta, the fictional club in Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson, of which the Duke of Dorset was for some time the sole member. Beerbohm was himself Honorary Secretary of the Myrmidons.

Notable members