The literary club that produced this magazine consisted of employees of The Falkirk Iron Company, Ltd. According to company literature, the firm was established in 1815, became a joint stock company in 1819, and only closed in 1981. Some of the records for this company are housed in Falkirk Archives. An overview of its history is available on the Falkirk Community Trust Museum and Archives Collection website. It is currently unknown when exactly the company’s Literary Club was formed.

Castings Magazine was produced quarterly and cost 3d. Following four pages of advertisements for local businesses, the table of contents lists 18 contributions. The entire work is a total of only 28 pages. This miscellany includes a variety of non-fiction articles, for example: on George Borrow’s book, Lavengro; the League of Nations; a trip from Shanghai to Hankow; instructions on ‘How to construct a cheap Receiving Set’; and one which asks ‘Who was William Shakespeare?’.

Original poetry is also included along with a feature called ‘Vanities in Verse’, which contains short, light-hearted poems on the lark, on wishes, on memory, as well as a nursery rhyme. In addition to a ‘Ladies [sic] Page’ that lists various recipes, other features include ‘Works and Welfare News’, and news on the Boys’ Welfare Club and the Girls’ Welfare Club. There are reports on the company sports teams, the company prize winners at the Falkirk Cattle Show and on the Benevolent Funds Committee.

Interestingly, there are also two employee biographies. The first is on James Kidston, a dresser at Falkirk Iron works, who started work for the company on 24 March 1863, and was still in same department in 1923. Kidston wrote prose pieces, and one of his poems (about being kind and patient) is given at end of the piece. The second biography is on John Hastings, who started working for the company at age 10 on 5 June 1860 and retired in 1922. He started in the Grate Fitting Shop, eventually became a Shop Foreman, before finally working in the Hollow-ware Department, having charge of the Tin Cover Shop.

Of note is that there is a writing competition offered in this issue, with prize money for the best two articles and photographs (10/ for each) submitted for the issue. The competition subject was to be ‘Holiday Experience’.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Literary Club of The Falkirk Iron Company, Ltd.

Date of Existence

1923?-?

Date of Magazine

June 1923 (No. 2)

Number of Issues

1 (extant) (at least 2 produced)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Published

Contents and Contributions

Advertisements; Art/Illustrations; Letters to Editor; Photographs (company employees); Photographs (company sports teams); Poems (original); Reports; Table of Contents; Title page

Repository

Falkirk Archives, Callendar House

Reference

Overview

The only information we currently have on the Crescent Literary and Debating Society comes from the magazine it produced. Members were most likely part of the congregation of the Crescent Congregational Church, which was located on Everton Brow in Liverpool. (Along with this society’s magazine, the records for this church are also housed at Lancashire Archives. Please refer to their catalogue for further details.)

From the magazine, we know that the society met in the Assembly Rooms, which were located at the back of the chapel. How frequently they met is currently unknown. This may have been a relatively small group: instead of a list of readers and/or members at the front, there is a list of 12 contributors, two of which were unmarried women.

The magazine has 14 contributions including the ‘Editorial’ and is 64 pages in total. Like other society magazines, it is a miscellany containing a mixture of non-fiction essays and fictional stories. In terms of subject matter, it may be that the Editress assigned each contributor a subject, as is suggested in the ‘Editorial’ (p. 1). There are no original poems in this issue, but, interestingly, at the close of several articles are quotes from a variety of published authors including Ellen Hooper, Henry Ward Beecher, François de La Rochefoucauld, Samuel Johnson and Cicero, to name a few.

The magazine was originally produced in manuscript and was read aloud at a society meeting at what was generally called a ‘Magazine Night’. ‘Magazine Evenings’ or ‘Magazine Nights’ were meetings that were devoted to the reading of original essays (or occasionally poems) written by group members that were submitted to the Magazine Editor beforehand. The Editor would be responsible for collecting, occasionally selecting, and reading the pieces aloud to the group (more rarely this was done by the contributor him/herself) on the appointed night. This would be followed by ‘criticism’ — or discussion on the piece’s positive and negative points — by the group members.

After the meetings, these contributions were sometimes bound and saved in the society’s library (if they had one) or would be kept by one of the office bearers. In these cases, it was intended that the magazine was to be preserved and that group members would have access to it at a later date. It is of note that literary and mutual improvement groups used the term ‘magazine’ to refer to the oral as well as the material medium.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Crescent Chapel Literary and Debating Society (Walton, Liverpool)

Date of Existence

1906?-?

Date of Magazine

1906

Number of Issues

1 (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Typescript (previously in manuscript)

Contents and Contributions

Annotations; Articles (non-fiction); Caricatures; Essays; Fiction/Narratives; Letter to Editor; Poem (republished material); Republished materials; Table of Contents; Title page

Repository

Lancashire Archives (Preston)

Reference

CULI 6/54

This magazine was founded by Frances Martin, an influential foundress of the College for Working Women (Queen Square, Bloomsbury) which was to take Martin’s name following her death. (For more information about the College for Working Women — later the Frances Martin College for Women — see the article, ‘College for Working Women‘, on the UCL Bloomsbury Project website.) Twelve years after the founding of the college, Martin decided that there was a need for a magazine for the benefit of its students and teachers. It was also to be open to external contributors who supported the college.

There are two issues of The College News, A Quarterly Magazine. There are three (extant) copies of the first issue, one of which is in Martin’s own handwriting (she acted as the magazine’s Editor for the first two issues). This is only seven pages, six of which comprise Martin’s ‘Address to the Readers’. Essentially, it is a prospectus for a new journal and lays out the need for a magazine that would act as a means of communication between students and teachers, and to share news about the college and its activities. In addition, she makes suggestions for other features for future issues: a section on the current business climate; the ‘News of the Quarter’ on college classes, meetings and socials; a ‘Personal News’ column on marriages, births, deaths, emigrations and promotions; and ‘Illustrations and Original Contributions’, that would include poetry, prose and artwork. The remaining page announces a forthcoming reading by the actress, Mrs Bernard Beere, that was to be held at the college, and a list of the type of ‘Contributions Requested’.

The second issue was produced eight months later and has twenty-one contributions, which include a variety of materials: there are non-fiction articles, essays, various club and society reports, a travel piece accompanied by by original pen-and-ink illustrations, two acrostic puzzles, along with various cuttings from presumably other College printed publications, and a newspaper cutting of an obituary reporting on the death of a senior administrator. There was also a writing contest with prizes of books offered for the best essays. It appears that these were the only two issues produced under by the College for Working Women.

Another college magazine appeared in print in December 1911 entitled, A Reminiscence of the College for Working Women. The ‘Introduction’ makes clear that it was the first issue and was instigated by the College Chairman so as to compare favourably with other institutions who produced their own journals. While this magazine was getting under way, the two earlier issues were discovered, and a decision was made to reproduce them in print as one (truncated and re-organised) issue. The earlier manuscript magazines were presented as a ‘prelude to the new journal.

The first official issue of this new magazine was called Our Magazine and appeared in print in January 1913 costing one penny. This issue contains a combination of reports notices of college events and activites, anecdotes and accounts of past events, and only one original story. It is predominantly devoted to correspondence, with 21 extracts from students’ letters.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Working Women’s College (later became the Frances Martin College for Women) (London)

Date of Existence

1874-1957 (in 1957, lease expired at 7 Fitzroy Street; moved to working men’s college building in Crowndale Road, NW1)

Date of Magazine

The College News, A Quarterly Magazine: Mar. 1886; Nov. 1886; A Reminiscence of the College for Working Women: Dec. 1911; Our Magazine: Jan. 1913

(Note: another magazine was produced in 1927-28, Chronicle of the Frances Martin College)

Number of Issues

4 (total number produced by the college under different titles during the period under study)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript, later issues in print

Contents and Contributions

Address; Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Class reports; Clippings (printed material); Correspondence column; Editorials;  Essays; Extracts of students’ letters; Lists of forthcoming events; Lists of Prizes and Certificates; Newspaper clippings; Notices; Notices (printed); Poem (republished material); Preface; Puzzles; Reports; Report (Debating Society); Tables of Class Attendance; Tables of Contents; Tables of Students’ Occupations; Title pages

Repository

London Metropolitan Archives

Reference

A/FMC/CM/001; A/FMC/CM/004;
A/FMC/CM/005; A/FMC/CM/006a;
(1927-28 issue: A/FMC/CM/007a)

Overview

Like The Athenaeum, this magazine was founded by and for the students of the University of Glasgow (see ‘Additional Notes’ below). The idea to start a periodical was raised at a student meeting presumably in late 1827.  There are four issues of this weekly magazine, each of which is only four pages. It is unknown if further issues were produced after January 1828.

The students voted unanimously to start a magazine that would contain their original contributions. The difficulty they had was deciding what they would call it. The first issue reports on the discussions that ensued and the few suggestions that were offered, including the ‘Stethescope and Literary Index’. The stethoscope being, apparently, mostly unknown, and the student defines it to his colleagues as he was told it by an acquaintance, a medical student:

‘…that it was an instrument, used to detect disease in the internals, by an application of it to the bared breast of the patient, I judged that this would be a most original title for our work, and withal, superlatively suitable’ ([Editorial], The College Stethescope and Literary Index, No. I, 3 January 1828, p. 1).

The Chairman then laid out the purpose of the magazine as follows:

‘…it will take cognizance of the whole internal arrangement of the University, the Lord Rector, Principal, Professors, and the various classes of students, in the several departments of Divinity, Law, Literature and Medicine, in order that, in cases where diseases shall be found to exist, it may by a timely application of purgatives and correctives, prevent further devastation of the College frame.
As a Literary Index, it will embrace original productions of every kind, whether in prose or verse, serious criticisms, or humorous sketches; in short, every species of writing, except polemical divinity’ (Ibid).

The magazine was priced at 1d, which was to cover the printing and delivery costs. Generally, each issue has the same layout: there are one or two articles followed by one or two poems or songs, with the correspondence column at the very end. The articles are anonymous and presumably by the Editor/s, but the poetry and songs are signed with the contributors’ initials.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

(Students of the University of Glasgow)

Date of Existence

3 Jan. 1828-?

Date of Magazine

3 Jan. 1828

Number of Issues

1

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Print

Contents and Contributions

Articles (non-fiction); Correspondence column; Editorial; Essays; Poems (original); Reviews; Songs

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

Mitchell (AL) 890768

Additional Notes

See also The Athenaeum: An Original Literary Miscellany.