Turf Club, Cairo

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When Augustus Lamplough wrote the book Cairo and its environs, he signed the forward “The Turf Club, Cairo, May 1908”.

The Turf Club was a fixture in pre-war Cairo.  Its location is mentioned by numerous authors, in relationship to other buildings, and it is often mentioned in accounts of the 1952 great fire that destroyed the fashionable expat section of Cairo and led to the overthrow of the Egyptian government a few months later.

The club was down the street from the opera house plaza, and a few blocks away from the iconic Shepheard’s Hotel, that housed British troops during WWII and would be destroyed in the great fire during the unrest of January 1952.

The Turf Club was on the same block as a Shepardic synogogue, the Chaar Hachamaim (Gates of Heaven) built in 1899.

“Storrs, T. E. Lawrence and others of their genus could not have missed noticing the Neo-Pharaonic temple. Not only was it the biggest structure on Maghrabi (now Adly) Street, but it was also contiguous to that most sacred of colonial sanctuaries, the Turf Club. Later, the club, an abject symbol of British Imperialism in the Middle East, would move westwards on the same street before being torched to the ground during the anti-British riots of January 1952. The Synagogue on the other hand survived intact three bloody Arab-Israeli wars and is still in operation today.”

Not really “to the ground”, though, as you can see in the photo, taken a week after the fire.


There does not seem to be any photo of the original Turf Club, other than the glimpse you get through the trees in the synagogue photo. There is now a huge apartment complex towering over the synagogue, so the original building must be gone, unless they used it as a base for the current building.   If you look at google maps, it is the only building between the synagogue and the street, so that is definitely the spot.  Here is the synagogue in 2018, showing the building next to it. Also a photo, date unknown, with no building showing; only a tree is visible.  The old maps show a small driveway or alleyway  between the two buildings, perhaps of a size suitable for the horse-drawn vehicles visible in the larger street view photo, but the relationship between the trees and the driveway is not clear in the photo.

The British occupation

Egypt was occupied by the British from 1882 to 1922, although Egypt was officially part of the Ottoman Empire.  This meant that French was the common language, and that the British flag was not seen, as they tried to keep a low profile about the Ottomans. 

From about 1897, the Abdine and Ezbekiyya areas of Cairo became important to the British and Europeans, although they were only about 3% of the population of those districts. Abdine was the diplomatic district and Ezbekiyya was the European quarter, where Europeans lived and shopped, and that housed head offices of the Suez Canal Company, the office of Thomas Cook and Son, Shepheard’s Hotel, Hotel Continental, Savoy Hotel, Turf Club, British Consulate offices, All Saints’ Church, St. Andrew’s Church, and offices of the Eastern Telegraph Company. (Mak, p. 36).

The greatest influx of officials was around 1900, the British employees were not encouraged to socialize with the locals and had separate facilities, for example, teacher lounges. After work they would socialize with other British at the Gezirah sports club or have tea or whiskey and soda at the Turf Club.

The two clubs

The Gezirah club was first opened in 1886; by 1900 the clubs had taken shape, with Egyptians barred from entry at both the Gezira and Turf clubs.  In addition the British were wary of catching local diseases, and established quarantine areas, even in their own properties, where locally hired servants were not allowed, especially during cholera epidemics of 1883, 1896 and 1906. 

The Turf Club was a place for discussing scandals, doing business, and making political decisions.

“It might thus appear as no accident that one of the most significant political speeches of the British occupation was delivered at the Turf Club, Sir Eldon Gorst, British Consul-General of Egypt from 1907-1911, made his influential ‘Egypt for the Egyptians’ speech at the Turf Club.” (Mak, p.99)

In the initial years of the British occupation, the club was more for political decisions. Later on, when the members were more from commercial or archaeological professions, the club was more for camaraderie.

The onset of WWI brought prosperity to the expat community, however the cost of living rose sharply, and the Turf Club raised its prices.

“A report by the National Bank of Egypt claims that the cost of living index doubled from 1914 to 1918, from 100 to 202. Due to the increased cost of fuel and food, the Turf Club significantly raised its prices in 1917. The Club raised the cost of its dinners by 2 piastres while the cost of tea rose by 1 piastre. A fee for use of a table was 2 and a half piastres charged to non­ members of the Club. The Club’s normal annual expenditure for coal in 1914 was £E 200, but by 1916, it was £500 and by 1917, it was £E 800.”

Lamplough lists the address of the club in the appendix of his 1907 book, Egypt and how to see it, as Sharia El-Magraby.  The Appendix also lists the secretary of the club as H. Aspinall.

Cairo had two clubs “patronized by the best English people”, the other one was the Khedivial Sporting Club.  In 1903, the name of Mr. H. Aspinall of the Turf Club was put forward as full time administrator of the Khedivial Sporting Club, at a suggested salary of 200 pounds sterling per year.

By 1911 this section of Cairo was known as the Ismailiya Quarter, and the Turf Club was described as being near the Hôtel d’Angleterre, the British Consulate Offices, the English Church, and the Office of the Eastern Telegraph Company.

A 1920 map from the Library of Congress shows the location of the Turf Club.

In June of 1923, twenty years after Lamplough had noted he was the secretary of the club, Aspinall was given a going away party by the committee, and later in the week saw off another member at the station. Attendees at the party included committee Chairman Mr. M.E. Simpson and Vice-Chairman Mr. C.R. Boulenger.

 

A 1933 map shows the club still in the old location.

At some point the club was moved further down the street, possibly to “next door to the south african officers club which was at 34 sharia adly pasha”. This is the building that was burned in 1952.  A map from 1945 shows the building in this new location, so it must have been moved sometime after WWI and prior to WWII.

The architect was Eric George Newnum, who also built Cairo University.

Sources

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