There are few details currently known about this society and its magazine. According to an obituary notice for Frank Hogg in The Hawick Express, it may have been the Hawick Literary Society that was referred to as the ‘young men’s literary society’ that is given as one of the ways that Hogg — a known member — helped to encourage a ‘taste’ for literature. This article states that he ‘had the credit of helping to inaugurate the first course of lectures [for the young men’s literary society] in the Exchange Hall’ (‘The Late Mr Frank Hogg’, The Hawick Express, 21 February 1880, p. 3).

The evidence for the production of a society magazine for this group comes from an article on Hogg in Hawick Songs and Song Writers (1881). According to the article, the song, ‘I like Auld Hawick’ was written anonymously for the Hawick Literary Society MS. Magazine in 1867. Hogg sang it himself at a dinner in 1879, revealing himself as its author.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Hawick Literary Society

Date of Existence

1867?-?

Date of Magazine

1867

Number of Issues

(at least) 1 (not extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Song (original); (other contents currently unknown)

Repository

Hawick Library (The Hawick Express and Hawick Songs and Song Writers)

Reference

Local History, LR828 MUR (Hawick Songs and Song Writers, 2nd edn, 1889; 3rd edn, 1897)

Overview

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Hackney Literary and Scientific Institution (London) (formerly the Hackney Mutual Improvement Society) (London)

Date of Existence

1848-1894?

Date of Magazine

Jan.-June 1857 (Vol. 2, No. VIII) (first issue possibly produced in June 1856)

Number of Issues

12 (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Hackney Archives Department

Reference

D/F/TYS/70/15

This society was based at Park Church, located on Grosvenor Lane, Highbury, London, which was a Scottish Presbyterian church. It had a thriving middle-class congregation, and several active clubs and societies attached to it, including this young men’s literary association. The society was founded in 1859, and their later minute books — also housed at London Metropolitan Archives —  still survive.

Whilst initially made up of young Scottish men, after 1895, women were allowed to join as full members. Overall, this was a fairly good-sized group, with an average of 63 members between 1881 and 1897, and its membership appears to have risen slightly in the first decades of the twentieth century to around 77 members.

There are 15 extant issues of this association’s magazine, eight of which date from 1901 to 1911 (falling within our study’s time frame of 1800 and 1914), and were the sole focus in this project. This miscellany has a variety of fiction and non-fiction pieces on a variety of topics, and the number of original poems is a bit higher than other mutual improvement and literary society magazines. There are also several biographical pieces on canonical authors such as Hans Christian Anderson, Charles Kingsley and Charles Lamb.

A particularly notable feature of this magazine was the elaborate, handcrafted covers and bindings that were used, with most issues having an elaborate outer cover that was attached to the inner magazine with a colourful ribbon. The most elaborate of these was a needlepoint cover, the design of which was taken from a book cover housed in the British Museum that was said to be made by Queen Elizabeth. This magazine was intended to be saved and was perhaps a treasured production of this society.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Park Church Literary Society (in association with Park Presbyterian Church, Grosvenor Place, Highbury, Islington, London)

Date of Existence

1859-1939?

Date of Magazine

1901-1911; 1929-1937

Number of Issues

The Highbury Magazine, No. 2 (1901); No. 3 (1902); No. 4 (1903); No. 6 (1905); No. 8 (1907); No. 9 (1908); No. 10 (1909); No. 12 (1911); 1 vol (1926-1927);

Park Church Literary Magazine, 1 vol. (1926-1927); 1 vol. (1930-1931)

(Within the date range of this study: 8 issues, 1901-1911.)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Advertisements (humorous); Articles (non-fiction); Ballad (original); Circulation List; Clippings (printed material); Correspondence column; Editorial; Fiction/Narratives; List of Office Bearers; Magazine Rules; Music; Poems (original); Tables of Contents; Title pages

Repository

London Metropolitan Archives

Reference

LMA/4366/B/008-15 (for later magazines, see: LMA/4303/E/02/043; LMA/4303/E/02/044)

Overview

A summary of the history of the Holyrood Literary Society is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

This magazine has a paper cover (as shown in the accompanying photograph) and has been hand-stitched with blue ribbon, with even the frontispiece — a small (gouache?) painting of a cottage — being sown into its pages.

The Christmas 1897 issue is the first number produced by this society. There are 84 pages with 12 contributions (including the frontispiece). With the exception of one anonymous piece and one signed with a pen-name, all of the authors sign with their own names. There is an equal mix of prose and poetry. Similarly to the New Literary Club Magazine, there is a ‘Page of Confessions’, which is a list of ‘favourite’ items that must be filled in (e.g. ‘Your favourite Author’; ‘Your favourite Book’, etc., ending with ‘What is the height of your ambition’).

Loosely inserted amongst its pages is a list of the magazine’s readers with their respective addresses. This paper also includes the rules of circulation, which allow only two days for reading, whereupon the reader must pass it to the next member on the list and record the date on which it was delivered.

While the society was a mixed-gender group, it appears that its 1897 magazine was contributed to solely by the male members. Indeed, the second piece by one ‘Sister Viola’ is actually a satirical sermon that uses the comic song, ‘Where Did You Get That Hat?’ (‘Chorus: Where did you get that hat? Where did you get that tile?…’) as a modern illustration for the lines from Ezekiel 4:1 of taking a tile. This was in keeping with the light, humorous tone of most of the magazine, and was almost certainly authored by one of the male members.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Holyrood Literary Society. On 24 September 1897 it amalgamated with the Literary Twenty-One Club and retained its name. On 3 October 1899, it changed its name to the Holyrood Literary Club, and later to the New Holyrood Club.  (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

The Holyrood Literary Society was formed in 1894, and, inclusive of its later incarnations, was in existence until 1946(?).

Date of Magazine

Xmas 1897

Number of Issues

1

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Circulation List; Clippings (printed material); Editorial; Essays; Fiction/Narrative; Frontispiece; Magazine Rules; ‘Page of Confessions’; Photographs (previously published); Poems (original); Poem (translation); Table of Contents

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

(Note: The Literary Twenty-one Club records are housed together with the records of the Holyrood Club (891047))

Additional Notes

See also entry for Holyrood Literary Society on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.