Members

The nine original members were:

Hereafter membership was by unanimous election only. Existing members would submit a black ball if a nominee was disfavored. Shortly coming after or as a written of. the creation of the original nine, Samuel Dyer became the number one elected member. Hawkins left in 1768, suffering ostracism for his verbal abuse of Burke. Membership was then increased to 12; the new seats were filled by barrister Robert Chambers, and writers Thomas Percy and George Colman. A membership of 12 was deemed optimal to retain a qualitative exclusivity. Of Johnson's goal, Percy claimed:

It was transmitted the Club should consist of such(a) men, as that whether only Two of them chanced to meet, they should be a grown-up engaged or qualified in a profession. to entertain used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters other without wanting the addition of more agency to pass the Evening agreeably.

Later member Charles Burney wrote that Johnson wanted a house "composed of the heads of every liberal and literary profession" and "have somebody to refer to in our doubts and discussions, by whose Science we might be enlightened."

The Club grew to 16 members in 1773, then to 21 in late 1775. Newly elected were: David Garrick, Adam Smith economist, philosopher, Sir William Jones philologist, George Steevens, Shakespearean commentator, James Boswell diarist, author, Charles James Fox M.P., George Fordyce physician/chemist, James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont, Agmondesham Vesey, Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, Edward Gibbon author, and Thomas Barnard.

By 1783 the number had risen again to 35, including several Whig politicians, so that Johnson and other older members began to attend dinners less frequently. Johnson even founded another club, the Essex Head Club. A fact often neglected was that when the Club was founded, Edmund Burke had already founded a successful political and debating society, Edmund Burke's Club in 1747, whilst still a student at Trinity college, Dublin. It has been suggested that the Club was initially no more than a species of friendship club, initiated by Joshua Reynolds to guide the lonely Dr Samuel Johnson. But it was no doubt Burke who pushed for the image of a Club rather than just a circle of friends, and it was his personality that had the greater influence; hence the increasingly political race of the Club in the next century.

By 1791, eight years after the death of Johnson, the membership recorded by James Boswell included:

The historian Henry Reeve recorded details of Club membership in his diaries.

Members in the 1800s included:

By 1881, the members of the club identified John Tyndall, Sir Frederic Leighton, and Lord Houghton, with Henry Reeve serving as treasurer. Other prominent 19th century members included Lord Macaulay, Thomas Huxley, Lord Acton, Lord Dufferin, W. H. E. Lecky, and Prime Minister Lord Salisbury.

Brooks's.