The chair of the Garrick has told its members that the club may consider “allowing one or two exceptional … lady members” to join in the near future but that normal waiting times will apply for the majority of women.
A leaked email from Christopher Kirker to all members on Wednesday described Tuesday’s vote ending the London institution’s men-only rules as “momentous” and addressed questions about how quickly the club might move to admit women.
Pro-women members have acknowledged that the club would need to find a way to expedite the general admission of women members to bypass its complex and protracted admission process, which in normal circumstances can stretch over at least two years.
Some Garrick members are proposing to fast-track Joanna Lumley into the club, as an apology for the behaviour of several men a decade ago who scribbled over and tore up an earlier nomination submission made by her fellow actor Hugh Bonneville.
In an email seen by the Guardian, Kirker confirmed that “usual waiting times will apply to all regardless of sex” but added “we may decide to consider one or two exceptional or even Distinguished lady members sooner”.
A list of seven potential members, including the academic Mary Beard, the former home secretary Amber Rudd, the Channel 4 news anchor Cathy Newman and the new Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika was drawn up in advance of this week’s vote.
Some members have expressed fears that the club’s admission regulations would allow serving committee members to blackball some of the new female candidates who are likely to be nominated in the coming days.
Labour’s Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who drafted the Equality Act 2010, said the club’s admission process would need to change. “You can’t have men who excluded women for years choosing which women are ‘acceptable’ to them. They should invite the women candidates – Ayesha, Cathy and Mary – to form a panel for admissions.”
One member acknowledged that there would need to be radical change of the regulations to avoid “the awful prospect of just ending up with a few token women members.
“It will be embarrassing if in 12 months’ time the club just has six women members. But the current process means that it takes a couple of years before new members are elected. We can’t wait that long for women,” he said, asking not to be named.
Another member said the club’s administration appeared to have been taken aback by the decision to change the rules. “At the beginning of the year, most members of the general committee were of the view that women membership was at least five years away,” he said, also asking not to be identified.
There had been no discussion of how to admit women or whether their entry should be expedited or whether the club’s pink and green signature tie would be redesigned into an item of clothing that women might want to wear, he said. “There has, I am sure, been absolutely no thought given to any of those details.”
Another member said that the process of becoming a member could even take five to 10 years.
“You put a name down, you second it, and then the members sign their name on the book. And if you have a certain amount of signatures on the book, then they’re put forward to the general committee and people can blackball … but it normally takes five to 10 years.”
On the issue of expediency, in his email to members, Kirker said: “I have no doubt that we shall soon have female candidates in the book. Rest assured that the usual election process and waiting times will continue to apply to all regardless of their sex. We may decide to consider one or two exceptional or even Distinguished lady members sooner.”
Elsewhere in the email, Kirker revealed that about 200 members went back to the clubhouse after for a “most convivial supper”.
“I spoke with many members, the overwhelming number of whom either were delighted at the outcome or else prepared to accept the decision,” he wrote.
“I shall not deny that many believed that the road which the majority on the general committee had chosen was the wrong one to take.”
He added: “I should like to encourage all members now willingly to accept and welcome this change.”
Bonneville originally nominated Lumley in 2011 in an attempt to kickstart the club into changing its no-women policy, but his attempt to put her forward for membership by writing her name in the leather-bound red candidates’ book was blocked by opponents.
Members now propose offering her an honorary membership, which could in theory be processed within days. They said this would atone for the treatment she received when the original nomination was thwarted by members scrawling comments such as: “who do they think they are?” and “women aren’t allowed here and never will be” on the page proposing her name.
The art historian, Lucinda Lambton, received similar abuse when her name was written into the membership book that year; members also hope to fast-track her in by way of an apology.
The mood in the club in the wake of the vote was said to have been good humoured, with only a few people opposed to the admission of women expressing anger about the development.
“One man said: well of course we can just blackball any women. It wasn’t clear if it was a joke,” a member said. The television presenter Jeremy Paxman was blackballed by the club when he first sought to become a member, for reasons that remain unclear.
The rules state that if four committee members vote against a new candidate, their nomination will be blocked.
Lambton, Lumley and the Garrick were all contacted for comment.
