The Metropolitan Chess Club was founded on the 17th April 1890, at 18 Abchurch Lane, City of London. The new club was actually a merger of two smaller clubs, the Monument and the Three Pawns, who were themselves only a year old at the time.
The existence of the new Metropolitan club is thought to have been brought about mainly by malcontents from the City of London Chess Club. This latter was by accounts a somewhat complacent, elitist and staid organisation that was at the time dominating the London, if not the European, chess scene.
The new club, with its cheap subscription rates and aggressively competitive spirit, grew impressively in its first few years, holding a record membership of 303 in 1893. Club premises moved to the Chesterfield Cafe, Great Tower St., to accomodate the numbers, and this was to be the first of many relocations.
Metropolitan led the way through a renaissance in league chess and flattened all comers during a five year period in the 1890's, including the aforementioned City of London club, the previous chess Goliath of the day. But such pre-eminence could not last as a series of similar clubs had by now sprung into being, these including the Athenaeum, the only other surviving club from the period. This surge of interest and activity initiated league chess as we know it today, and the club's founders can take credit for facilitating this progress through their forward looking policies e.g. insistence on the use of clocks or sand glasses.
In 1912 a youthful Capablanca gave a simultaneous display against 29 Metropolitan players, scoring 18 wins, three draws and eight losses, and there have since been similar events with Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky, and John Nunn.
The club remained active throughout the first world war, though at a considerably reduced pace. It closed down in May 1940 for the summer, through until October 1945 as it turned out. This five year dormancy due to national conflict has been the only interruption in the club's 112 year history.
Currently the club play at Middlesex Street Community Centre. Since 1991, the club has also run a successful annual chess congress at the Bishopsgate Institute. Typically this has been a five round swiss tournament, attracting around 150 entrants to the three grading divisions.
Thanks to Rob Hanson for writing up the summary of the clubs history taken from the book by Tom Deery and JJ Moore.