A watchmaker named Abraham Isaacs occupied the first building on the site of 127. He was known to have been here in 1715 and possibly for some years before that. By 1796, Isaacs had been replaced by the auctioneer James Daniels, of whom it was said that he could ‘pick one’s pocket with his tongue’. By 1823, the house had passed into use as a lodging-house run by William Gunstone and this business was afterwards acquired by Mrs Isabella Moffat and then by William Yates, who ran it until the house’s demolition in 1875.
The new dwelling erected on the site was sold to Sir John Puleston [1830-1908], one of HM Lieutenants of the City of London, Constable of Caernarfon Castle and Chairman of the City of London Conservative Association. For 18 years, from 1874, Puleston sat as Member of Parliament for Devonport, losing his seat only when the Liberals, under Gladstone, ousted Lord Salisbury’s Conservatives in 1892. When Puleston moved from127 to an apartment in Whitehall Court in about 1881, he sold 127 to Walter Shoolbred, formerly a captain of the 13th Middlesex Regiment, who also owned an estate in Ross-shire, the Kildermorie Estate.
With the departure of Shoolbred, 127 was acquired by Captain Weatherall, 20th Hussars, and it was he, present at the inaugural meeting of the Cavalry Club Committee in April 1890, who offered the premises to the Club. Originally housed only in 127, the Club went on to acquire the leases of both 125 and 126 Piccadilly, and in 1907 engaged the firm of Mewes and Davies (who a few years earlier had been commissioned to build the Ritz Hotel) to carry out extensive refurbishments – completed in 1909 – that form the Club house that is seen today.
In 1975, the Guards Club (founded in 1810) gave up its premises around the corner in Charles Street, and merged with the Cavalry Club, a successful marriage that has stood the test of time. Much of the property of the former Guards Club was sold publicly at that time, but the Guards Club brought with them some fine military pictures, some silver (including a beautiful candelabra) and 800 members.
In 1984, the Club’s landlord (Sir Richard Sutton’s Estates) sold all their West End properties, including 127, to a foreign buyer who immediately sold them on to a London-based property company, Stockley plc. Stockley drew up plans to convert 127 into a hotel and advised the Club Committee that it was not their intention to renew the lease (due to come to an end in 1988). However, the Club resolved not to leave the premises it had occupied for nearly 100 years and set about raising the funds to enable it to buy the property from Stockley, which it did in April 1987.
