SchoolGate blog: the Bullingdon Club raises questions about the Tories

In the illustrious history of Christ Church, May 12, 1894 will always stand out as one of its darkest moments.

On that day, one of Oxford University's largest colleges made the ultimate mistake, allowing the all-male Bullingdon Club - the upper-class drinking society a century later to be frequented by George Osborne, David Cameron and Nathaniel Rothschild - to hold one of its notorious evening dinners in their hallowed halls.

The results were disastrous. Drunken and riotous Bullingdon members - sporting the exclusive society's dress of mustard waistcoats, tailor-made blue tailcoats and blue bow-ties - went on an unprecedented rampage in the college's hallowed halls, smashing every light in its Peckwater Quad along with all of its blinds, its doors - and all 468 windows.

This particularly upper-class brand of internal Oxford self-destruction led to headlines worldwide, and was even reported in the New York Times, which described students as being guilty of committing an "orgie" of destruction that went into the early hours of the morning.

It also led to the society temporarily being banned from meeting within 15 miles of Oxford, further enhancing the Bullingdon Club's reputation as the ultimate club of super-wealthy hellraisers.

Almost exactly 100 years - and many hundreds of riotous shindigs later - it was amid this distinguished environment of exclusivity that the Tory leadership of the future developed their relationship with Nathaniel Rothschild, a friendship surely ended by his extraordinary letter to The Times today. Mr Rothschild, now 37, is photographed with Mr Osborne and other society members in the society's above, 1992, photograph.

The Bullingdon Club - immortalised in Evelyn Waugh's 1928 novel Decline and Fall - projects an image far from the classless, centrist Conservative Party that Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron have so painstakingly developed.

Famous for trashing restaurants and other riotous behaviour, the society was described in a 2005 article by the Oxford Student, the university's official student newspaper, as drawing "its membership from Oxford's super-rich, enticing them to a life of secrecy, champagne drinking and ritualised violence".

Its habit for rioting, although toned down from its notorious past, reemerged again in December 2004 when police arrested all 17 of the club's members for wrecking the cellar of a 15th Century pub by smashing more than a dozen bottles of wine into its walls. Four members - including Princess Diana's nephew Alexander Fellowes - spent the night in prison.

While many of the society's rituals remain secret, joining the Bullingdon Club is known to involve putting up with having your room trashed beyond recognition and seeing your drinking tested beyond all sane boundaries. And there is also the small matter (and indeed, for its wealthy members, it is only a small matter) of buying the uniform, which costs around £3,000 in total.

In the above Bullingdon Club photograph featuring Mr Osborne, are seven identifiable faces.

Among them is Harry Mount, son of a baronet and Mr Cameron's cousin, who has worked as a banker, lawyer and is now a journalist. Also pictured is Chris Coleridge, who - along with Mr Rothschild - launched a racy student newspaper called Rumpus. As well as a topless model, it also featured a 'Page 7 fella.' He is the founder of a vitamin-induced water company.

Mark Petre, son of 18th Century Baron Petre, a former magazine editor, is also pictured. He was found dead at his family's Essex stately home in 2004 while awaiting trial for driving under the influence of drugs following a car crash in his Mercedes.

Another pictured associate of Mr Osborne has been identified as Peter Holmes a Court, whose family theatre group was sold to Andrew Lloyd Webber for £87m in 2001.

Mr Rothschild, a keen skier and businessman whose main home is in Klosters, Switzerland, is in line to be the fifth Baron Rothschild. He will inherit his family's £750m fortune and has himself made a second fortune of an estimated £11bn by running a hedge fund.

The other men identified from the 1992 picture are Jason Gissing, a founding father of the supermarket giant Ocado and a multimillionaire, and Lupus von Matzahn, a German-born management consultant.

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