The Thirty Club

History

The Thirty Club was established in London in 1905 or 1906 as a private dining club "for the betterment of advertising". Its first members were drawn from advertising agencies, advertisers, the press and production companies associated with advertising. Leading figures included J. Murray Allison, Advertising Manager of The Times, Jack Akerman later founder of Advertiser's Weekly, Percy Burton host of the first meeting at his agency, Thomas Russell sometime Advertising Manager of The Times and John Hart of London Opinion and first President.

For the first four or five years the discussion on the betterment of advertising may have been rather academic, with no campaigning or outward attempt to influence the industry. However, in 1910 the Club decided to stage an "at home" exhibition and "do something serious". This may have been stimulated by a visit in January that year from six Americans from the Advertising Club of New York. By May 1914 they had certainly forged more Transatlantic links, sending delegates to the Toronto Convention.

After WWI a major contribution by the Club was in planning and staging the Advertising Exhibition at White City in 1921. In the same year Thirty Club delegates attended the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World Convention in Atlanta, and the following year the Milwaukee Convention.

Shortly afterwards the Club persuaded the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World and 2,000 American advertising delegates to agree to come to London for the largest international advertising convention and exhibition yet held, at Wembley in 1924.

In 1923 the Thirty Club suggested and was active in the formation of the Women's Advertising Club of London partly to help host the Convention, and partly in response to the growing number of women in the industry, especially among US delegates.

With the profit and benefit from that great event the Club then played a leading role in the founding of the Advertising Association In 1926. Thirty Club members privately guaranteed £5000 to underwrite the Advertising Association's Exhibition & Convention of 1927, the subsequent success of which provided the AA with financial stability.

After this, with the Advertising Association taking over some of its more serious functions in the mid-1930s, the Club reverted to being an influential private dining club, meeting monthly to hear a distinguished speaker. Club membership remains approximately one-third advertiser, one third advertising and one-third media, much as it has been since the beginning.

See: Michael Cudlipp The Thirty Club (The History of Advertising Trust, 2000).

Archive content

Date range: 1942-

Scope/ Formats

Correspondence, minutes, business records, membership books and records, lists of presidents, speakers etc. Also, Michael Cudlipp's research papers and notes for his history of the club.

Note: All previous records up to 1941 were lost in the London Blitz. Also, minutes are never taken at dinner meetings.

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