of 200 dozen bottles of Pommery champagne. During the club's time on Trafalgar Square, a parliamentary question was asked in the House of Commons about the White Ensign being raised on the club's flagpole as part of a prank. The club's foundation stone on the modern clubhouse was laid by Gladstone on 9 November 1884, when he declared "Speaking generally, I should say there could not be a less interesting occasion than the laying of the foundation-stone of a Club in London. For, after all, what are the Clubs of London? I am afraid little else than temples of luxury and ease. This, however, is a club of a very different character", and envisioned the club as a popular institution for the mass electorate. However, another of the club's founders, G. W. E. Russell, noted "We certainly never foresaw the palatial pile of terra-cotta and glazed tiles which now bears that name. Our modest object was to provide a central meeting-place for Metropolitan and provincial Liberals, where all the comforts of life should be attainable at what are called 'popular prices'", but added "at the least, we meant our Club to be a place of "ease" to the Radical toiler. But Gladstone insisted that it was to be a workshop dedicated to strenuous labour." Funds for the clubhouse were raised by selling 40,000 shares of £5 each (), in a Limited Liability Company, with the unusual stipulation that "No shareholder should have more than ten votes", so as to prevent a few wealthy men from dominating the club. However, this only raised £70,000 (), and so an additional £52,400 was raised for the construction of the clubhouse by the Liberal Central Association. The remaining £30,000 necessary was raised by mortgage debentures. The clubhouse was still unfinished when it opened its doors in 1887, but it was opened early on 20 June to allow members to watch that year's Jubilee processions from the club terrace. It was when the club had only recently moved to its present address that "Bloody Sunday" ensued on its doorstep during the Trafalgar Square riot of 13 November 1887. NLC members flocked to the windows to watch George Bernard Shaw (a member of the club) address the demonstration, and later in the day, witnessed the bloodshed which ensued. In its late-19th-century heyday, its membership was primarily political, but had a strong journalistic and even bohemian character.