In 1883 members of the Regent Street Polytechnic founded a fencing society and so became one of the first professional institutions to bring fencing, previously confined to the well-to-do, within the reach of a much wider proportion of the population. The club as such had to wait until 6 June 1898 before it was officially constituted within the Poly, under the Presidency of Douglas Hogg (Lord Hailsham) whose direct descendant and past Lord Chancellor, is the current president.

From rough and ready beginnings the club began to flourish, and such coaches as Morrell and Parkins, legends in the fencing world, were soon producing champions from those they taught at the Poly. The records indicate that through the years our main strengths have been womens foil and sabre. However, in 1932 our strength was such that members supplied the whole of the British Epee team, a unique achievement. A Ladies Club was started, and by the 1940s was amongst the strongest in the country, winning the national team championship outright in 1947 and providing the national champion (and an Olympic finalist) the following year. This was Mary Glen Haig, a stalwart Poly member later President of the Amateur Fencing Association and a member of the Sports Council Committee and currently a member of the IOC and Dame Of the British Empire.

In the 60s Master Coach Bela Imregi, who was national epee coach to the all-conquering Hungarian team at the world championships in Cairo back in 1949, joined the Poly. In the 70s he was assisted by another Hungarian Zolt Vadaszffy. In the 80s by Jess Smith who established the Young Poly with notable success with Boo Conder and played a major roll in the embryonic development of Womens Epee with Nicky Twigg, Maureen Lloyd and Karen Saunders. The club has won national honours at all four weapons, and a roll call of members who have fenced internationally contains some of the best fencers that Britain has produced since the war: at womens foil, Glen Haig, Bewley-Cathie, Sue Green, Hilary Cawthorne and Linda Martin (third in Europe in 83); at mens foil, Price, Cook and Nicol; at epee a list beginning with Pelling and Knott and including Payne, Steve Netburn of the USA, Pilbrow, Lewis and Beevers. The list of sabreurs is even more impressive: Birks, Howes, Stringer, Oldcorn, Deanfield, Philbin, Eden, Zarno and Cohen.

Trend-settingly the Poly supplied the first womens individual British epee and sabre champions with Mauren Lloyde and Sally Claxton respectively. However, the club (the mens and womens clubs were combined during the 70s) has always had a social side, and some of its keenest members are those who have never reached the international stage. Henry Marshall, for instance, who in his spare time edited the international magazine of stage fight directing. Dr. Dorothy Knowles, once a regular at the Poly twice a week, who fenced for a total of over fifty years. She took up the sport in Paris in the early 1930s. In the 50s, she took on four British seamen on board a battle-ship and out fenced the lot.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

In 1989 the funding for the club changed. The club could not function under its existing small membership, so it was decided to work to develop the numbers. Major reorganisation was necessary and a long term plan was devised and put into operation. It was decided that because of the central position of the club, the relatively good facilities and the traditions and history of the club that we should be challenging in all weapons at the highest levels. The plan was to develop, in order, the beginners, senior foil, senior epee, womens epee and then to consolidate the already advanced sabre section. We adopted the principle of employing the top available coaches at their specific weapon and introducing dedicated weapons nights. First, two novice coaches were employed, ex-British International Pierre Harper and ex-Junior Champion Andy Martin. Several beginners classes were started and income and membership improved dramatically. 1992 saw the coaching staff been further strengthened by Georgio Guerrini from Italy (epee) Michael Frfch from Germany, Graham Walker and Peter Barrett (Foil) and a short time by Ziemowit Wojciechowski.

At this time the club was open 5 nights a week an unpresidented achievement for a British fencing club. Epee membership further benefited by the addition of British Womens champion Georgina Usher and Australian International Adele Haswell enabling us to win the Womens British Epee Team Champions 1993. Three prominent internationals, Tony Perity, Simon Aspinall and Nigel Fancourt, also joined that year and helped in the winning of the 1993 Mens British Epee Team and British Open Team Champions. Unhappily when the club was at height its host and landlords the Polytechnic, now renamed the University Of Westminster, could not accommodate the club during the 9 months of refurbishment of 309 Regent Street. On our return space could only be found for us on two nights. However these nights are now proving very popular and we are building an enthusiastic group of members mainly fencing foil and sabre.