Myrmidon Club

The Myrmidon Club is a dining club elected from the male undergraduate members of Merton College, Oxford, and with a continuous history exceeding 150 years. Although the club is single-sex, an equivalent club for women, named the Myrmaids, was established following the college's decision to admit women students in 1980.
History.
Founded in 1865, it is one of the handful of such clubs with an almost continuous existence from the second half of the 19th century. It once maintained private rooms on the High Street, but in common with most similar clubs it no longer has private accommodation.
Describing Lord Randolph Churchill's membership of the Club towards the end of the 1860s, T.H.S.Escott wrote:
L.E.Jones in his memoir described a dinner which (as a member of Balliol) he attended as a guest in his first term. He drank 24 glasses of port, was rescued from the shrubbery and was carried to bed by his friends:
Traditions.
The club takes its name from the legendary warriors commanded by Achilles, as described in Homer's Iliad.
The Club has storage facilities in College, but in common with similar college dining societies is intermittently out of favour with the college authorities.
Its colours are purple, gold and silver. Members wear ties with stripes of these colours. 
Popular references.
The Club is thought to be the model for the Junta, the fictional club in Max Beerbohm's "Zuleika Dobson", of which the Duke of Dorset was for some time the sole member. Beerbohm was himself Honorary Secretary of the Myrmidons.
See also.
List of University of Oxford dining clubs