Bengal Pilot Service
According to Massey [1],
"THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB Was formerly styled the Bengal Military Club, the members of which were limited to the I.C.S. and military services. As time, however, moved on and things changed they found that this particular form of exclusiveness was rather an expensive luxury, and very wisely threw open wide the heavenly portals and admitted within their celestial and sacred precincts members of other government services, save and except those of the Bengal pilots. Why the club ever made this invidious distinction, of course I cannot say, but at a later period, recognising possibly the injustice of their action, they rescinded their prohibition, and now the pilots sit in the seats of the mighty amongst the members of the other services. "
References
- Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century by Montague Massey
- On The Hooghly. Malcolm H Beattie, Philip Allan & Co. Ltd. (1935)