EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Unholy row as Justin Welby seeks to rejoin gentlemen only club

By Richard Eden, Diary Editor

THE DAILY MAIL

14 March 2026

For more than 30 years he devoted himself to preaching the gospel and praying for peace and goodwill on earth. But, in the aftermath of his resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury in difficult circumstances last year, Justin Welby was always likely to find life a little less serene – although he might not have expected that one of his first, and fiercest, battles would be at the £1,700-a-year Travellers Club.

That’s the same gentlemen’s club in St James’s, London, from which Welby resigned in 2014 – a year after he became Archbishop of Canterbury – when the Travellers voted conclusively against allowing women members.

Only days earlier, the Church of England had approved legislation which allowed women to become bishops. But last year Welby, 70, decided that, spared the burdens of office, he would allow chums to re-enter his name in the candidates’ book for prospective members. ‘He felt he could swallow his DEI [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion] objections to the Travellers remaining a male bastion, after all,’ reflects a St James’s boulevardier.

But if Welby, who officiated at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018, thought that after, as it were, straying like a lost sheep, he’d be rapturously welcomed back, he has been brutally disabused. Though he’s attracted plenty of signatures in support of his candidacy, he has also inspired a barrage of opposition – scrawled furiously under his name and also, I’m told, communicated by other means.

The club chairman, [former MI6 officer] Adrian Stones, has been swamped with letters of objection,’ I’m told. Causing still greater disquiet is the candour with which some of Welby’s critics are expressing themselves in the candidates’ book. ‘They’ve been writing “NO” all over it,’ a member tells me, adding that their fury stems from the publication of the Makin Review – into abuse perpetrated at Christian camps – which effectively ended Welby’s time as Archbishop.

That report concluded that it was ‘unlikely’ that Welby had been unaware of concerns being voiced about the abuser, John Smyth, while Smyth continued to run the camps. ‘Someone’s signed Welby’s page “Jimmy Savile”,’ a Travellers stalwart tells me, adding that the description of Welby as ‘company director’ has been crossed out. ‘“Clerk in Holy Orders” has been written in instead.’

END