For almost 150 years the Savile Club has been a bastion of gender segregation, adamant in its insistence that no woman should be admitted. Now it has its first female member, without actually having admitted a woman to its ranks.

The gentlemen’s club achieved this seemingly contradictory feat after one of its members announced that he was transitioning to a woman.

The member, who is in her thirties and is married with two young children, has been told that she can continue to be a member now that she identifies as a woman.

The decision by the governing committee is understood to have been met by widespread approval within the club, which was founded in Mayfair in 1868 and includes among its members John le