Cabal, clique, and coterie: groups in the Oxford DNB

One of the Oxford DNB's current projects is to commission and publish a set of about 350 essays on significant groups in British history.

Group essays make connections between people, showing how individuals came together to work, plot, create, explore, fight, discover, reform, invent and, of course, enjoy themselves.

You'll find the complete set of groups published so far in the Themes area of the dictionary; free access to the ODNB online is available in nearly all public libraries in the UK, and other institutions worldwide, many offering home access to library members.

The following are a free selection of groups from the current list of 210 essays.

Groups by number

First Fleeters
One Nation group
Five members
Century Club

A sense of place

	Red Clydesiders
	Clapham Sect
	Cambridge Platonists
	Langham Place group

Creative spirits

Eton choirbook composers
Virtuosi of St Luke
Johnson's Club
The Inklings

The human touch

	Band of brothers
	Pilgrim Fathers
	Freewoman circle
	Glamour Boys

Names to conjure with

Tots and Quots
Monks of the Screw
Goons
Sunday Tramps

New group essays are added in online updates, published each May and October. Our latest update (May 2008) adds 45 new groups about which you can read more in the preface by Lawrence Goldman, who also writes about the aim and scope of the group project.