Editing Drones Club (section)

==Overview==
The Drones Club is in [[Mayfair]], [[London]], located in [[Dover Street]], off [[Piccadilly]]. A [[drone (bee)|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".<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1974], ''Aunts Aren't Gentlemen'', chapter 4, p. 23. Aunt Dahlia and Bertie Wooster: "'Don't wear the Drones Club tie.' 'Certainly not,' I agreed. If the Drones Club tie has a fault, it is a little on the loud side and should not be sprung suddenly on nervous people and invalids, and I had no means of knowing if Mrs. Briscoe was one of these".</ref><ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1974], ''Aunts Aren't Gentlemen'', chapter 19, p. 170. Bertie Wooster narrates: "I should have mentioned that in the course of these exchanges Cook's complexion had been steadily deepening. It now looked like a Drones Club tie, which is a rich purple. There was talk at one time of having it crimson with white spots, but the supporters of that view were outvoted".</ref> A Drones Club scarf is also mentioned.<ref>Wodehouse (2008) [1974], ''Aunts Aren't Gentlemen'', chapter 1, p. 15. Bertie describes advising Orlo Porter to put on the scarf: "I directed his attention to the Drones Club scarf lying on the seat, at the same time handing him my hat. He put them on, and the rude disguise proved effective".</ref>

Wodehouse based the Drones Club on a combination of three real London clubs: the [[Bachelors' Club]] (which existed around the turn of the century), [[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<!--GIVEN NAME TOO UNCERTAIN--> McGarry (Buck's barman from 1919 to 1941, credited with creating the [[Buck's Fizz (cocktail)|Buck's Fizz]] and [[Sidecar (cocktail)|Sidecar]] cocktails). However [[Evelyn Waugh]] declared that the Drones did not resemble any real club in 1920s London.<ref>
{{Cite web
 |author      = Alexander-Sinclair, Ian (report)
 |date        = 2007 <!--BOTTOM LINK GOES TO 2007 PHOTO GALLERY-->
 |title       = Bertie Wooster's Mayfair
 |work        = Norman Murphy's talk at Wodehouse Week 2007 (The PGW Society UK)
 |url         = http://www.pgwodehousesociety.org.uk/awwwnorman.htm
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20070927005531/http://www.pgwodehousesociety.org.uk/awwwnorman.htm
 |archive-date = 27 September 2007
 |quote       = Norman [Murphy] explained that Dover Street was the street of new clubs in the 1920s and 30s.  So here Wodehouse found the ideal site for the fictional Drones Club, originally based on the real Bachelors' Club, but subsequently the source of the Drones was transferred to Buck's Club, founded in 1919 by Herbert Buckmaster in nearby Clifford Street.  Buck's had by then replaced the Bachelors' as the young man's club. But the Drones Club's swimming pool, complete with its notorious ropes and rings, was taken from the Bath Club, also in Dover Street, at Number 34, amongst whose founders was one of Wodehouse's many uncles.  Tuppy Glossop's mean trick on Bertie of looping back the last ring "causing me to plunge into the swimming b. in the full soup and fish" (i.e., full evening dress) was based on fact – it happened all the time in the Bath Club pool.
 |url-status     = dead
}}
</ref><ref>
{{Cite web
 |author      = Ring, Tony
 |date        = October 1999
 |title       = Life of P G Wodehouse
 |work        = Wooster Sauce, the Journal of The PG Wodehouse Society UK (at Wodehouse.ru)
 |url         = http://wodehouse.ru/bioring.htm
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20070929083555/http://wodehouse.ru/bioring.htm
 |archive-date = 29 September 2007
 |url-status     = dead
}}
</ref>

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]] (Jeeves stories), [[Pongo Twistleton]] (Uncle Fred stories), [[Psmith|Rupert Psmith]] (Psmith stories), and [[Freddie Threepwood]] (Blandings stories), 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]].