The Coterie was a fashionable and famous set of English aristocrat

Aristocracy (class)

The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...

s and intellectual

Intellectual

An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...

s of the 1910s, widely quoted and profiled in magazines and newspapers of the period. It adopted the hostile description as a "corrupt coterie".

Many were the children of The Souls

The Souls

The Souls were a small, loosely-knit but distinctive social group in England, from 1885 to about 1920. Their members included many of the most distinguished English politicians and intellectuals....

. Its members included: Lady Diana Manners, the most famous beauty in England; Duff Cooper

Duff Cooper

Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich GCMG, DSO, PC , known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician, diplomat and author. He wrote six books, including an autobiography, Old Men Forget, and a biography of Talleyrand...

 who became a Conservative politician and a diplomat; Raymond Asquith

Raymond Asquith

Raymond Asquith was an English barrister and eldest son and heir of British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith by his first wife Helen Kelsall Melland .- Career and honours :...

, son of the Prime Minister and a famed barrister; Maurice Baring

Maurice Baring

Maurice Baring was an English man of letters, known as a dramatist, poet, novelist, translator and essayist, and also as a travel writer and war correspondent...

; Patrick Shaw-Stewart

Patrick Shaw-Stewart

Patrick Houston Shaw-Stewart was a brilliant Eton College and Oxford scholar of the Edwardian era who died on active service as a battalion commander in the Royal Naval Division during the First World War....

, a managing director of Barings Bank

Barings Bank

Barings Bank was the oldest merchant bank in London until its collapse in 1995 after one of the bank's employees, Nick Leeson, lost £827 million due to speculative investing, primarily in futures contracts, at the bank's Singapore office.-History:-1762–1890:Barings Bank was founded in 1762 as the...

 and war poet; Nancy Cunard

Nancy Cunard

Nancy Clara Cunard was a writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class but strongly rejected her family's values, devoting much of her life to fighting racism and fascism...

 and her friend Iris Tree

Iris Tree

Iris Tree was an English poet, actress and artists' model, described as a bohemian, an eccentric, a wit and an adventuress....

; Edward Horner and Sir Denis Anson. World War I destroyed the original Coterie, taking the lives of Horner, Shaw-Stewart and Asquith.

They were best known for their extravagant parties and were also associated with such places as the Café Royal

Café Royal

The Café Royal was a restaurant and meeting place on 68 Regent Street in London's Piccadilly.-History:The establishment was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with...

 and The Cave of the Golden Calf

The Cave of the Golden Calf

The Cave of the Golden Calf was a night club in London. It opened in an underground location at 9 Heddon Street, just off Regent Street, in 1912 and became a haunt for the wealthy, aristocratic and bohemian...

, London's first nightclub.