In Victorian times, most Londoners would have been familiar with the "goose club". What was it?

A savings plan over the course of a year to enable the purchase of a goose for Christmas dinner

Right!!

Goose clubs were popular with working-class Londoners, who paid a few pence a week towards the cost of a Christmas goose. The week before Christmas, London meat markets were crammed with geese and turkeys, many imported from Germany and France.

And they still exist, though not just for buying a goose or turkey . Known as Christmas clubs they were often organised in pubs. The regular customers would put their change or a few pence in each week, or as and when, and then collect the total plus interest just before Christmas and then use the money to buy the turkey and the rest of the traditional Christmas fare. They don't seem to exist in this area now, though I expect they do in big towns, except as part of a commercial operation. People still subscribe for Christmas hampers. There are companies that provide them in this way and exist exclusively for this purpose but usually it's a sideline of dairies ( we still have milk delivered to each house in the UK and the milkman can collect the subscription every week ) . They are particularly popular in the North and in industrial areas.

One of the better-known Sherlock Holmes tales involves such a club:


The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle