Judi Dench and Siân Phillips become first female members of Garrick Club

The decision was made at an annual general meeting of the Garrick club on Monday evening. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

The Garrick Club has named Judi Dench and Siân Phillips as distinguished members, making them the first women to be allowed to join the club in its 193-year history.

The actors were given fast-tracked membership during the club’s annual general meeting on Monday evening. Until now, no woman has been allowed into the Garrick unless invited in and accompanied around the building by a man.

The announcement of the two names at the start of the meeting prompted some applause from Garrick members.

About 60% of members of the central London institution voted in May to admit women, reversing several earlier votes that had blocked proposals to reform the club’s rules.

Although a number of women with leading positions in the British establishment were immediately nominated as prospective female members – including the classicist Mary Beard; the former home secretary Amber Rudd; the Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman; and the new Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika – the complex process of becoming a member of the Garrick can take between two and five years, prompting some unease that despite the vote, the club would not admit its first women before 2026.

However, regulation 15 of the club’s rules states that the “general committee may in its discretion elect four members in each year in consideration of their public eminence or distinction”. This means that by the end of the year, the club’s 1,500-strong membership list could include four women.

The West End club was founded in 1831 as a place for actors and patrons of the arts to meet. It was named after the 18th-century actor and playwright David Garrick.

In March, the Guardian published names taken from a leaked copy of the club’s closely guarded membership list, revealing its central position at the heart of the British establishment.

The list featured scores of leading lawyers, heads of publicly funded arts institutions, the deputy prime minister and King Charles.

Campaigners for greater representation of women in public life responded with dismay to the list.

Richard Moore, the head of MI6, and Simon Case, the head of the civil service, both resigned their memberships of the club, as did several judges, amid anger from colleagues at their decision to join an institution that has been notorious for decades for its refusal to admit women.

Acclaimed for her film and stage roles, from the Royal Shakespeare Company to James Bond films, Dench, 89, joins a number of prominent actors who are Garrick Club members including Brian Cox, Benedict Cumberbatch and Matthew Macfadyen.

Phillips, 91, has had an equally distinguished career in film, theatre and television and was made a dame in 2016 for her services to drama. The two actors’ agents were contacted for comment.

Mary Ann Sieghart, the author of the Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, said: “The Garrick is symbolically really important. The principle has been accepted and that’s the main thing. I’m thrilled that they have started accepting female members.”

Ultimately the vote in May to let in women rested on a legal technicality rather than reflecting a strong desire by members to change the rules.

New analysis of the club’s rulebook by David Pannick KC, and backed by senior lawyers including two former supreme court judges, concluded there was nothing explicitly preventing women from being allowed to join, because the 1925 Law of Property Act advises that in legal documents the word “he” should also be read to mean “she”.