Rockingham Club

The Rockingham Club was a Yale University student club founded by British-born Yale undergraduate Lord Nicholas Hervey as a social club for Yale student descendants of royalty or aristocracy, a requirement later modified to allow membership by offspring of the "super-wealthy." The club survived only five years (1981-1986) and the clubhouse (privately purchased by a small group of members including Hervey and Salem Chalabi) was an off-campus historic clapboard building housing a full length portrait of Lord Hervey, Lord Hervey himself (he took six years to graduate), as well as a ballroom and chandelier and held parties whose invitations were in demand by a certain demographic of Yale students and their guests (predominantly homosexuals, bisexuals, arts majors, and those aspiring to attend formal balls and/or socialize with by-gone title-heirs and the exceptionally wealthy).

The club was named after Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, KG, PC (13 May 1730 – 1 July 1782), an ancestor of Lord Nicholas' on his mother's side, who during his term of office as British Prime Minister repealed the Stamp Act, reducing the tax burden on the American colonies. Rockingham also backed the claim for American independence and in 1782, when he was appointed Prime Minister for a second time, upon taking office he acknowledged the independence of the United States, initiating an end to British involvement in the Revolutionary War.

ee also

*List of Yale University student organizations
*Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham

Sources

*NY Times Article on Rockingham Club at Yale
*February 1986 Interview Magazine Article on Rockingham Club
*Iovine, Juli V. Lipsticks and Lords: Yale's New Look, in The Wall Street Journal, 4 August 1987, p. 1.