Cobden Club & Workingmen’s Institute, Kensal Road, London NW

In a letter to Mary Ward, written in 1895, Passmore Edwards commented that “several years ago” he had advanced a mortgage of nearly £4000 to the Cobden Clubs Institute in NW London .. “but I am sorry to say that it is largely kept on its feet by the drinking habits fostered. This rubs against my grain painfully…”
He was probably referring to the Cobden Club and Workingmen’s Institute, which was opened at 170 & 172 Kensal Road in 1880. It remained in existence as a social club with as many as 400 members in 1983. However, more recently reopened as a “private gentlemen’s club” it would have found even less favour with Edwards.