Kit-Cat Club


Kit-Cat Club,

London political and literary club, active c.1700–1720. The membership of some four dozen included leading Whig politicians and London's best young writers. Among them were Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset; Sir Robert Walpole; Thomas Pelham-Holles, duke of Newcastle; William Congreve; Joseph Addison; Sir Richard Steele; and Sir Godfrey KnellerKneller, Sir Godfrey
or Gottfried von Kniller
, 1646–1723, English portrait painter, b. Germany. After study in Amsterdam, Rome, and Venice, he settled in England in 1675, achieving success in fashionable circles and at court, where he was named principal painter
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, who did portraits of the members. The club was the center of opposition during Queen Anne's Tory ministry (1710–14).