The young men’s mutual improvement society that produced this magazine was in existence from at least 1875, going by the reports of the society meetings published in the local newspaper. A further investigation of the local press and archives may provide further information on this group.

In an article in The Hawick Express in 1880 on the society’s annual social meeting, the main points of the secretary’s report were given. The group’s activities for the session included the following:

’12 readings had been given, 12 recitations, 1 dialogue, 14 essays, and 3 contributions to the MS. Journal’ (‘Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society’, The Hawick Express, 08 May 1880, p. 3).

In addition, the group members participated in debates, the subjects of which were:

‘Ought Sir W. Lawson’s local option bill to become law? Are the mental capacities of the sexes equal? And was Gladstone’s visit to Mid-Lothian the act of a far-seeing statesman?’ (Ibid).

Also reported were the new office-bearers for the 1880-1881 session. Amongst them was Mr John Turnbull, the editor of the MS Journal. Outwith the mention of the three contributions to the (presumably) annual manuscript magazine (or magazine night?), no other details are given. (For an example of a society in which the members’ contributions for society ‘magazine nights’ later were collected and bound, see the entry for Renwick Free Church Literary Association, ‘(Magazine Evening: Magazine Later Bound)’.)

The members of this group, at least in the mid-1870s, appear to taken some issue with the spirit of a debate held on whether or not museums should be open on Sundays, such that at least a couple of members wrote of their grievances in letters to the editor of The Hawick Express. This was an unusual circumstance, and the wish to take their disagreements public in the desire to gain public support perhaps speaks to an earnestness of spirit in which these members engaged in society activities.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Hawick Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society

Date of Existence

1875?-1880?

Date of Magazine

1880

Number of Issues

(at least) 1 (not extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

(Unknown)

Repository

Hawick Library

Reference

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

At a meeting of this society held on 28 April 1868, it is recorded that two men (who were later to briefly become joint editors) were to form a  committee to look into the feasibility of starting a manuscript magazine for the group, and they were to make a report at the next meeting. The society discussed the report at the second meeting in the 1868-1869 session, and the matter was approved, so long as they were ‘economical in the matter of paper’. This highlights the fact that like most small societies, costs were an important factor in the decision to establish a magazine.

The ‘Report of [the] Committee appointed at [a] meeting of [the] Renfield Association, April 28th 1868, on [the] proposed Association Magazine’ can be found at the back of the group’s minute book and makes for interesting reading: this document is a rare example where the thought and care that went into the planning and execution of a society magazine is documented and preserved.

The committee couches the formation of the new magazine within the framework of an existing culture for society manuscript magazines already being produced in the city. It recommended having a monthly magazine, that the paper be provided by the association, and that the magazine should be bound. Circulation would be restricted to the members, and the list that would accompany the periodical would be constructed according to the proximity of members to each other, beginning and ending with the Editor/s. The committee also gave a full list of the Editors’ duties. The cost of the paper (approximately 50 sheets), ruling and binding of the magazine was estimated at 2s 6d per month.

However, we know very little about the magazine that was actually produced: interestingly, outwith the noting of the periodic change of editors for various reasons, there is no mention of the production of the magazines in the minutes.

At the close of the 1867-1868 session, there were 22 members on the roll, which dropped to 10 in this society’s very last session. This means that from the time of its proposal to the dissolving of the group, there was a decreasing number of members that would have contributed to this magazine.

We do know that there were in total six issues or ‘parts’, and that at the last meeting, they were allocated to six group members who are named.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Renfield Free Church Young Men’s Society

Date of Existence

26 February 1851-18 January 1870

Date of Magazine

1868-1870

Number of Issues

6 (Nos. 1-6)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

(unknown)

Repository

(Glasgow City Archives)

Reference

(See: Glasgow, Renfield Free Church, U.F., Young Men’s Society minutes, 1851-69, CH3/1166/13)

Additional Notes

See also entry for Renfield Free Church Young Men’s Society on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Overview

A summary of the history of the Calton Wesleyan-Methodist Congregational Young Men’s Society is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

There are fifteen issues of this monthly magazine bound into one hard-cover volume. This includes the Supplement to the Magazine for December 1839 (Vol. I, No. XI), and contains an Index (pp. 282-4) to all the previous issues, including the supplement. The volume is paginated from pages 1 to 329, but is unnumbered in the March through May 1840 issues. Each issue is between 25 and 30 pages.

The March through December 1839 issues are all edited by Gilbert Currie. Interestingly, all these pieces appear to be in his own handwriting. The remaining issues — perhaps under a different editor — also appear to be written by one or two different hands. This was an uncommon practice in mutual improvement and literary groups. It was usually done to try to maintain the anonymity of the authors as their respective handwriting was presumably recognisable by other group members. This practice also helped to give a uniformity to the magazine, which, for some societies was of some import. In this case, it appears to have been to preserve anonymity and uniformity, as the authors of some of the original articles and poems used pen-names, and the handwriting gives the issues a consistency in appearance.

Like other mutual improvement (including church) societies’ magazines, this is also a miscellany. However, while other society periodicals generally include contributions written on a wide range of topics, many of the pieces in this magazine are on religious issues and doctrine, and there are a number of reports on missionary activities abroad. Similarly, most of the essays and poems are moralistic in flavour. It appears that this magazine acts more as an extension and means of broadcasting the church’s work rather than being an object for facilitating ‘improvement’ and providing amusement, which was more the norm.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Calton Wesleyan-Methodist Congregational Young Men’s Society (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1839?-1840?

Date of Magazine

Mar. 1839-Jan. 1840, with Supplement to Dec. 1839; (no February 1840 issue; not extant?), Mar. 1840-May 1840

Number of Issues

15 (includes supplement)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Address; Articles (non-fiction); Correspondence column; Didactic works (reproduced); Essays; Hymns; Letters; Letters to Editor; Poems (original); Poems (republished material); Preface; Reports; Table of Contents

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

NFF124/6/81, 5585510-585510a

Additional Notes

See also entry for Calton Wesleyan-Methodist Congregational Young Men’s Society on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Overview

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Wick Literary Society

Date of Existence

20 Sept. 1903-11 Oct. 1909 (although one meeting was held in 1922 to decide on the use of the remaining funds)

Date of Magazine

Christmas 1903-Christmas 1908

Number of Issues

6

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Print (Note: from the Editorials, we know that there were manuscript magazines (if only ‘Magazine Nights’) prior to this)

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Caithness Archive Centre, now Nucleus: The Nuclear And Caithness Archives

Reference

C/P/39

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Noetic Society, Edinburgh (Note: unclear if this society also produced the following magazines: Noetic Magazine, Vol. 1, 1855-56 (YAP4 N77/43264); Noetic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1855 (YAP 4 N77/16748))

Date of Existence

1853?-?

Date of Magazine

Vol. 4, No. 23, Dec. 1853 (1 issue); Vol. 1, No. 1, May 1855 (New Series) (1 issue); 1855-56 (12 issues)

Number of Issues

1 (extant from first (?) series; Vols. 1-3, New Series, no longer extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Edinburgh Central Library

Reference

NRA(S)3563; from card catalogue at Central Library: 1853 issue: Class No. YAP4 N77; Book No. 43878; Vol. 1, No. 1, 1855 issue: Class No. YAP 4 N77; Book No. 16748; 1855-1856 issue: Class No. YAP4 N77, Book No. 43264

Overview

The Paisley Literary and Convivial Association was a group of about 25 men who met weekly on Saturday nights between 1814 until around 1864 for readings, discussion of pre-selected topics, and to read their original essays and literary compositions on a range of subjects. The minute book has survived and is also housed in Paisley Heritage Centre (see the Centre’s online catalogue for further details, and below for reference number).

There are two volumes (i.e. two copies) of the ‘Manuscript Book of the Literary & Convivial Association’, Volume II being the original. This manuscript book is a total of 78 pages of original poems and songs, and the contributions are signed by the association members. At the back of the book is a table of contents.

Volume I provides a history of the society and its members, which included the poets James Yool, John King, William Stewart and James Whitehill.  Yool was a weaver all his life. At around age 20, he began to publish his poetry. Stewart, a working-class man from Paisley, is described as a ‘self-made man’, who later became a teacher and emigrated to Canada. King (aka ‘Curly King’) was also a weaver.

Another member, Matthew Erskine was a weaver, later a foreman in the warehouse of J&J Robertson, shawl manufacturers. William Mardock (also Murdock) was a shoemaker who later emigrated to Canada. He worked as a lighthouse keeper, later in the newspaper trade, and published his poems.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Paisley Literary and Convivial Association

Date of Existence

1814-1856 (‘resuscitated’ in 1860s until ?)

Date of Magazine

(compositions are from various dates added later)

Number of Issues

1 (a second, manuscript copy of this is also available in archives (Vol. 1); original is listed as Vol. 2)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Clippings (printed material); Poems (original); Songs (original); Table of Contents; Title page

Repository

Paisley Heritage Centre (Central Library)

Reference

Heritage 366 PA PC20134 Archives (Vols. 1 & 2);

Heritage 651.77 PA PC22140 Archives (Minute Book)

In the late nineteenth century, this was a relatively small group with approximately 20-25 members. There are no membership rolls in the early minute books, and only the attendance numbers are given for their meetings, which are usually somewhere between 15 and 20. The annual subscription rate in 1895 was 1/6 (Minute entry, 6 November 1895), lower than the average of 2/6, which strongly suggests that its members were composed of the working classes.

The earliest mention of this society’s manuscript magazine is found in the minute of 25 November 1891. The magazine was read aloud by the Editor, Mr J. E. McLachlan. The contributions that evening consisted of: ‘Melrose Local Government’ by Por Bono Publico; ‘Water Fountains on Highways’” by Aqua; and ‘Dressed or undressed’, anonymous. ‘Each paper raised a considerable amount of discussion’.

The MS magazine continued to feature as a regular part of the meetings from 1891-1896. The next extant minutes begin again in 1904 (the first minute is recorded on 28 October 1904), when the society was reformed as The Melrose Literary and Debating Society. The new society met at the Ormiston Hall every other Tuesday at 8pm. The annual subscription was 1/6 (the same as the earlier society). The object was ‘the moral and intellectual improvement of its members by means of Lectures, Essays, Debates, Readings, Recitations and Social Intercourse’ (‘Rules’, minute entry, 28 October 1904). The society elected an Editor of the Manuscript Magazine at the first meeting along with the other office bearers.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Melrose Literary Society (Note: reformed in 1904 as The Melrose Literary and Debating Society)

Date of Existence

1885-2003

Date of Magazine

1904-1958 (Note: 9 items total, of which only the following are within the date range of this study: Vol. 10 (1904-1911); Vol. 11 (1911-1916))

Number of Issues

2 (within date range of this study)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Mostly Manuscript, with a few typescript (Vol. 10); Manuscript and typescript (Vol. 11)

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Scottish Borders Archive and Local History Centre (Heritage Hub, Hawick)

Reference

D/54/8 /1-9

Overview

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

(Currently unknown; unknown if this is the production of a society, although a ‘society’ is mentioned in an article by the editor entitled ’15 March, 1888′, p. 19, March 1888) (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1888?

Date of Magazine

Feb., Mar., Apr., and May 1888

Number of Issues

4

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Original in manuscript, then print (lithograph?) (see The Foundry Boy, and The Overnewton Whisper)

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow

Reference

Bookstore DA 890.G5 RAD

The Freethinking Christians formed in 1799, or possibly in 1801, after having broken off from a Universalist Baptist congregation in Parliament Court Chapel, located in Bishopsgate Street, City of London (Hannah Adams (1755-1831), in her Dictionary of All Religions (1817), gives 1799 as the year in which this society was founded, while William T. Whitley’s, The Baptists of London (1928), dates the congregation’s secession as 1801).

In 1809 (?) they built a church at (Jewin) Crescent, Jewin Street, where between 400-500 ‘members and strangers’ attended the weekly meetings (Hannah Adams, ‘Freethinking Christians’,  A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations, Jewish, Heathen, Mahometan and Christian, Ancient and Modern… (Boston: James Eastburn and Company, and Cummings and Hilliard, 1817), p. 82-3. A Dictionary of all Religions and Religious Denominations <https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Dictionary_of_All_Religions_and_Religi.html?id=yQRaAAAAMAAJ> [accessed 17/06/18].) In 1832, a new meeting house was completed in St John’s Square for the congregation which could seat 300 people, and it served as their place of meeting until 1871 (‘St John’s Church and St John’s Square,’ Survey of London: Volume 46, South and East Clerkenwell, ed. By Philip Temple (London: London County Council, 2008), pp. 115-41. British History Online <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol46/pp115-141> [accessed 17 June 2018]).

This church produced  (at least) two different magazines, the first perhaps as early as January 1811, and the second in 1842 until at least 1844. (The evidence for the earlier magazine comes from the second volume of The Freethinking Christian’s Magazine. See The Freethinking Christians’ Magazine; Intended for the Promotion of Rational Religion and Free Enquiry, No. 13, Vol. 2 (London: printed and published by Charles Mitham, 1812). The Freethinking Christians’ Magazine <https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wTIEAAAAQAAJ> [accessed 17 June 2018]).  The first magazine will not be discussed here as it was a church magazine used  primarily as a discussion forum for its members and a vehicle to set out its differences from other established religious doctrines and dogma.

The group based at the Freethinking church produced at least twenty-six issues of their own manuscript magazine, of which only five issues – those dating from August to December 1844 bound into one volume – have survived. The volume itself is 442 pages, and is bound in a hard-board cover with a leather spine and corners, held by a brass clasp. The book housed in the collection of the London Metropolitan Archives once belonged to Thomas Wolstencroft, whose signature appears on the blank page inside the cover. The five issues are preceded by a title page for this fourth volume, and an index of the entire contents was added at the front. Each issue begins with a short transcription of a sermon or quote from the Bible written on the back of the ‘Contents’ page. The magazine is a miscellany that includes essays on church policies and practices along with moralistic pieces, but contributions of original prose fiction and particularly poetry also feature regularly.

When compared to the earlier, print magazine produced by the church, the manuscript magazine is decidedly more ‘literary’, and literature along with the ‘Uses of Books’ are discussed with some zeal. For example, a series entitled ‘Scraps’, and later ‘Our Scrapbook’, includes short transcriptions from a variety of sources under themed headings, all of which were meant to be instructive.  Books are reviewed in two of the issues.  In addition, a series of articles entitled ‘My Literary Favourites’, featuring Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dugald Stewart and Charles Lamb, were written by a frequent contributor to the volume known only as ‘V’. But the magazine could also be the site of less serious, more playful discussion of books and literature, as in the article entitled, ‘A Glance at One of the Uses of Books’, which takes the form of a pseudo-medical, half-jesting treatise.

Other regular features in all the issues were letters to the Editor, extracts from personal letters, the ‘Editor’s Present Reply to Questions Sent’, a correspondence column, and articles written in reply to previous pieces. What is evident from these five issues is that the magazines acted as a medium in which to carry out a series of dialogues between the contributors, the Editor, the readers, as well as the church community. This interdiscursivity is foregrounded throughout all of the issues. The church Elder, in his role as magazine Editor, acted as gate-keeper to the magazine as well as moderator. The predominant purpose of the letters to the Editor was to ask for his opinion on, or clarification of, the finer points of various doctrines, or alternatively for the elucidation of religious terms.

This later manuscript magazine appears to have been a platform for which a number of writers, both men and women, of varying experience could improve and hone their skills in writing not only religious and moral essays and poems, but also more ‘literary’, even humorous, contributions for a sympathetic audience, and who hoped, perhaps one day, to earn acclaim for his/her writing.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Freethinking Christians (Church of God, St John’s Square, London)

Date of Existence

1842?-1844?

Dates of Magazine

Vol. 4 (containing No. 22, 4 Aug. 1844; No. 23, 1 Sept. 1844; No. 24, 6 Oct. 1844; No. 25, 3 Nov. 1844; No. 26, 1 Dec. 1844)

Number of Issues

5 (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Correspondence columns; Essays; Extracts of published works; Fiction/Narratives; Index; Letters to Editor; Poems (original); Poems (republished material); Proverbs; Reviews; Sketches; Tables of Contents; Title pages

Repository

London Metropolitan Archives

Reference

CLC/197/MS02199

The London Metropolitan Archives suggests that this Sunday school was connected to a Baptist church that was located on Worship Street, City of London. The church itself was running from at least 1791. It was still running in the 1870s, but by 1896, was demolished for the expansion of the North London Railway. From ‘An account of the rise and progress of the Worship Street Sunday School’ in the magazine it produced, we know that the school was established in the spring of 1818 by the minister, John Simpson, and ‘the younger members of his family and some other friends’ (J. C. Means, ‘An account of the rise and progress of the Worship Street Sunday School’, The Monthly Instructer, V, March 1827, pp. 59-65 (pp. 56-60)).

On April 18th of that year, its first students were admitted. The school had separate classes for boys and girls, and the teachers were made up of ‘young persons in the congregation’, and later from some of its former pupils. While classes were originally taught in the chapel, by the time of the ‘account’, they had moved to Dunning’s Alley, Bishopsgate.

The first issue of The Monthly Instructer appeared in 1823, five years after the school had been founded. Only Volumes V, VI and VIII have survived. According to its Editor, the magazine provided ‘useful or interesting information, and tend[ed] to promote in some way the interests of religion and morality’ ([Editor], ‘The Editor’s farewell’, The Monthly Instructor, VI, December 1828, pp. 287-88 (p. 287)). These moralistic miscellanies consist predominantly of transcribed extracts from various printed materials.

Other features in later issues include moralistic, fictional (original?) stories, non-fiction articles on different animals that included original illustrations and a correspondence column. The correspondence column appears at the very end of the magazine in the majority of the issues. From this feature, we learn about the production process of the magazine. What is interesting about this Sunday school magazine is that the contributions appear to have come from teachers as well as the students.

The 1830 volume of the magazine contains the original pink paper covers of the monthly issues that were omitted in the previous bound volumes. The covers are of interest as they give the subscription price (6d per annum) and a list of the subscribers on the back covers. If each of the (separated) listings represent a class, the magazine might have served as a weekly textbook before being passed to the next class.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Worship Street Sunday School (London)

Date of Existence

1818-1830?

Dates of Magazine

Vol. V (Jan.-Dec. 1827); Vol. VI (Jan.-Dec. 1828); Vol. VIII (Jan.-Dec. 1830)

Number of Issues

36 issues in 3 bound volumes

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Circulation Lists; Correspondence columns; Extracts of published works; Fiction/Narratives; Indexes; List of Sunday Evening Lectures; Prefaces; Tables of Contents; Title pages

Repository

London Metropolitan Archives

Reference

CLC/229/MS07513A