November 12, 1655

The subject today is the story of the Kit-Cat Club. We'll find out it is not really a cat story, but an adventure in metaphor and English literary history, and useful background. The founder of this organization is said by most to be Jacob Tonson (November 12, 1655 to March 17, 1735/6 ), an English book publisher. At this era the publishers were the ones getting rich on books, and Tonson did stuff like obtain the copyright to Shakespeare's plays.

It is my considered and otherwise opinion that if you use Wikipedia to backup an assertion, like the above, then you are just revealing your own total ignorance. To ground and fill out our story about the Kit-Cat Club let's look at the account in --

Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons composing the Kit-Cat Club; with a prefatory account of the origin of the association: illustrated with forty-eight portraits from the original paintings by Sir Godfrey Kneller. By James Caulfield (1821).

Therein we learn, "Tonson appears to have been the key-stone of the Kit-Cat Club...."

And--

'THE celebrated association entitled the KIT-CAT CLUB was instituted about the year 1700, and consisted of the principal noblemen and gentlemen who opposed the arbitrary measures of James II, and conduced to bring about the Revolution. Their ostensible object would seem to have been the encouragement of literature and the fine arts; but the end they labored most assiduously to accomplish was the promotion of loyalty, and allegiance to the protestant succession in the House of Hanover: indeed they carried their zeal, in the cause they advocated, to such extraordinary lengths, that the most beneficial effects resulted from their exertions. Horace Walpole, who had the best information on all political subjects, speaks of them as the “patriots that saved Britain” ...[Others stress] their encouragement of the belles lettres... 

'The KIT-CAT CLUB seems to have dissolved, or died away about the year 1720. In a letter from Vanbrugh to Tonson in 1725, the following'passage occurs: “ You may believe, when I tell you, you were often talked of, both during the journey and at home ; and our former KIT-CAT days were remembered with pleasure. We were one night reckoning who were left, and both Lord Carlisle and Cobham expressed a great desire of having one meeting next Winter if you came to town; not as a club, but as old friends that have been of a club, and the best club that ever met.“'

Our main question though, is why this group of writers and thought makers, called their group, the Kit-Cat Club. From the same source we learn of various theories, so our question is not new.

'The particulars of the origin of the Kit-Cat Club, are involved in some obscurity. The etymology of its nomenclature has been variously accounted for. It, in all probability, took its name from the person, at whose house the meetings of the club were first held. Their earliest place of rendezvous was at an obscure pastry cook's (in Shire Lane, near Temple Bar) entitled CHRISTOPHER CAT. The dinners and suppers, upon which this person banquetted his illustrious guests, were composed for the most part of mutton-pies, for his skill in the manufacture of which he seems to have acquired considerable reputation. ...Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, is said to have been upon terms of intimate acquaintanceship with this pre-eminent pie-maker.... [I]t is not unlikely that the members of the Kit-Cat Club had frequent opportunities of discussing the merits of his confectionary, before he was appointed chief baker, and victualler in ordinary, to the society. ... Certain it is, that, assisted by his munificent patrons, and his friend, the bookseller, he removed, in a short time, to a more commodious residence, the Fountain Tavern in the Strand; where his guests became more regular in their attendance, and their number increased from the thirty-nine mentioned ...[sometimes] to the forty-eight whose portraits were included ... in the splendid volume dedicated to the Duke of Somerset in 1723. Besides their regular place of meeting, the Fountain Tavern, the Kit-Cat Club were accustomed to resort to the countryhouse of their secretary, Mr. Jacob Tonson, at Barn Elms in Surrey, where he had built a room for their especial reception. During the Summer months the members of the club were also in the habit of meeting, occasionally, at the upper Flask Tavern, Hampstead. ....[and other places mentioned in our source.]'

And the leap from Christopher Cat to Kit-Cat is suggested;

...

'To the standard dish of the society, Christopher Cat's mutton pies, we have many allusions in the various literature of the day... [such as] Dr. King, in his “ Art of Cookery,” ...[writing]:

'“ Immortal made as KIT-CAT by his pies.” And in the prologue to the “ Reformed Wife,” it is insisted, that “A KIT-CAT is a supper for a Lord.”'

An alternative proposal is outlined: 

'In the Spectator, No. 9, the society is said to have derived its title, not from the maker of the pie, but the pie itself. “ The fact is,” observes Mr. Malone, “ that on account of its excellence it was called a Kit-Cat, as we now say a sandwich.”'

And yet another scenario is possible:

'The custom of toasting ladies after dinner, peculiar to the Kit-Cat Club, and the society, out of which it was originally formed, viz. “ The Knights of the Toast,” is thus alluded to in ...[an issue of] the Tatler. “ Though this institution had so trivial a beginning, it is now elevated into a formal order, and that happy virgin, who is received and drunk to at their meetings, has no more to do in this life but to judge and accept of the first good offer. 

'The manner of her inauguration... is performed by balloting; and when she is so chosen, she reigns indisputably for that ensuing year; but must be elected anew to prolong her empire a moment beyond it. When she is regularly chosen, her name is written with a diamond on one of the drinking glasses. The hieroglyphic of the diamond is to shew her that her value is imaginary; and that of the glass, to acquaint her that her condition is frail, and depends on the hand which holds her.”

'Several poems, written on the various toasts of the day, for the drinking-glasses of the society are preserved in ...[the] volume, [we reference above] in the notices of their respective authors. Sir Samuel Garth, Addison, Maynwaring, and the Earls of Halifax, Dorset, Wharton, ....have. each contributed their jeu' d'esprit on the most celebrated beauties of their time. This circumstance gave rise to an epigram, probably ... by Arbuthnot; in which the writer has suggested another etymology for the name of the club, not less curious than that already decided upon.

“ Whence deathless KIT-CAT took its name,
Few critics can unriddle;
Some say from pastry-cook it came,
And some from Cat and Fiddle.

From no trim beaus its name it boasts,
Gray statesmen or green wits ;
But from its pell-mell pack of toasts
Of old Cats and young Kits!”

Martinus Scriblerus, however, in his HALLUCINATIONS ETYMOLOGIE corroborates the account previously given of the origin of the name of the club; and questions, with much seriousness, whether libations were ever made to the healths of any ancient ladies, by the members of this festive assembly.

We are not the first then of those "Few critics," in our quest to unriddle the name of the Kit Cat Club.