In the reign of George the Second there met, at a house in Essex-street, in the Strand, the Robin Hood Society, a debating Club, at which, every Monday, questions were proposed, and any member might speak on them for seven minutes; after which the "baker," who presided with a hammer in his hand, summed up the arguments. Arthur Mainwaring and Dr. Hugh Chamberlain were among the earliest members of this Society. Horace Walpole notices the Robin Hood as one of the celebrities which Monsieur Beaumont saw in 1761: "it is incredible," says Walpole, "what pains he has taken to see:" he breakfasted at Strawberry Hill with Walpole, who was then "as much a curiosity to all foreigners as the tombs and lions."

The Robin Hood became famous as the scene of Burke's earliest eloquence. To discipline themselves in public speaking at its meetings was then the custom among law-students, and others intended for public life; and it is said that at the Robin Hood, Burke had commonly to encounter an opponent whom nobody else could overcome, or at least silence: this person was the president. Oliver Goldsmith was introduced to the Club by Samuel Derrick, his acquaintance and countryman. Struck by the eloquence and imposing aspect of the president, who sat in a large gilt chair, Goldsmith thought Nature had meant him for a lord chancellor: "No, no," whispered Derrick, who knew him to be a wealthy baker from the City, "only for a master of the rolls." Goldsmith was little of an orator; but, till Derrick went away to succeed Beau Nash at Bath, seems to have continued his visits, and even spoke occasionally; for he figures in an account of the members published at about this time, as "a candid disputant, with a clear head and an honest heart, though coming but seldom to the Society."

One of the members of this Robin Hood was Peter Annet, a man who, though ingenious and deserving in other respects, became unhappily notorious by a kind of fanatic crusade against the Bible, for which (published weekly papers against the Book of Genesis,) he stood twice in one year in the pillory, and then underwent imprisonment in the King's Bench. To Annet's room in that prison went Goldsmith, taking with him Newbery, the publisher, to conclude the purchase of a Child's Grammar from the prisoner, hoping so to relieve his distress; but on the prudent publisher suggesting that no name should appear on the title-page, and Goldsmith agreeing that circumstances made this advisable, Annet accused them both of cowardice, and rejected their assistance with contempt.[17]