During Robert Arthur’s life the most fashionable frequenters of his chocolate-house became more and more exclusive, and the proprietor soon found that catering for its members, all men of means and leisure, was the chief part of his business, and more lucrative than the custom of the general public. His interests, of course, lay in the direction of meeting the wishes of his patrons, and in consequence of this members of the public were eventually excluded. White’s Chocolate-house was thus transformed into the private and exclusive society since known as “White’s.” Though White’s was at this time reputed to be very exclusive, and although certain qualifications were indispensable, some of the members were drawn from a quite unaristocratic class. In Davies’s “Life of Garrick” is the following curious reference to Colley Cibber as a member of White’s: “Colley, we are told, had the honour to be a member of the great club at White’s; and so I suppose might any other man who wore good clothes, and paid his money when he lost it. But on what terms did Cibber live with this society? Why, he feasted most sumptuously, as I have heard his friend Victor say, with an air of triumphant exultation, with Mr. Arthur and his wife, and gave a trifle for his dinner. After he had dined, when the club-room door was opened, and the Laureate was introduced, he was saluted with loud and joyous acclamation of ‘O King Coll! Come in, King Coll!’ and ‘Welcome, welcome. King Colley!’ and this kind of gratulation, Mr. Victor thought, was very gracious and very honourable.” The present White’s Club dates from 1755, in which year Robert Arthur removed with the Young and Old Clubs which had met at his house—350 members in all—to the “Great House” in St. James’s Street, which, though much altered, is still White’s. He had purchased this building from Sir Whistler Webster. One of its earlier occupants had been the Countess of Northumberland, whom Walpole mentions as one of the last to practise the unmaimed rites of the old peerage. “When she went out,” says he, “a footman, bareheaded, walked on each side of her coach, and a second coach with her women attended her. I think, too, that Lady Suffolk told me that her granddaughter-in-law, the Duchess of Somerset, never sat down before her without her leave to do so.” In course of time the management of the club came into the hands of Martindale, a man whose name was connected with high play, of which he frequently figured as an organizer. The house now began to have something of the organization which prevails in modern clubs.