The records for the Saltcoats Literary and Debating Society are housed in Ayrshire Archives Headquarters, Ayr. They include the minutes from 1897 until 1982, along with lists of members, syllabi, cash books, correspondence and newspaper articles for various years. A full study of this society remains to be conducted. The one extant issue of the magazine that this group produced is housed in Irvine Townhouse.

The table of contents lists 22 contributions to this magazine, including the ‘Introduction’ and ‘Answers to Correspondents’, and is a total of 80 pages. The authors’ names — presumably all male — are given, which is not very common for either manuscript or published literary society magazines.

According to the ‘Introduction’, the group met on a weekly basis, and its ‘primary object’ was ‘the acquiring of knowledge by mutual effort’. The purpose of the published magazine was prompted by the wish of ‘putting into more permanent form some of the work overtaken by the Society during the winter session’ (‘Introduction’,  Saltcoats Literary Society Magazine, Session 1904-05 (Saltcoats: Archibald Wallace, 1905), p. 3).  While the articles are admittedly of a more serious tone — ‘It undoubtedly lacks much of the humorous element common to popular magazines’ — it reflects the tone and seriousness of the members’ collective endeavours.

The introduction asks readers to remember that the magazine is a production of amateurs, and makes no claim for absolute originality. Almost all of the articles were first read aloud at the society meetings, and they appear in the magazine in condensed form so as to limit costs as well as the readers’ patience. The magazine’s intended audience was to include not only society members but also the public.

In addition to advertisements for local businesses that appear at the front and back, the issue contains a mixture of non-fiction articles, original fiction and poetry. Outwith those that accompany the advertisements, there are no illustrations for any of the contributions.

The ‘Answers to Correspondents’ is the final contribution in which the Editor replies to letters singly and collectively, as in the case of ‘J. M. and Others’: ‘We were very much surprised at the amount of poetry received for this Magazine. We had room for a very few of the more suitable ones’ (Editor, ‘Answers to Correspondents’, Saltcoats Literary Magazine, p. 79). In addition to providing feedback on the contributions, there are also answers to factual questions posed, often with a humorous twist. For example, the answer to ‘K”s question was as follows: ‘Saltcoats is 30 miles from Glasgow and 390 from London. We are unable to compute its distance from Ardrossan. Judging from the remarks of some people we know it must be a long way off indeed’ (Ibid). (Ardrossan is just under 2 miles from Saltcoats: there appears to have been a rivalry between the two towns during this period.)

To date, it is unknown if any further issues of this magazine were produced.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Saltcoats Literary and Debating Society

Date of Existence

1891-1982?

Date of Magazine

1905 (Session 1904-05)

Number of Issues

1

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Published (Saltcoats: Archibald Wallace, 1905)

Contents and Contributions

Advertisements; Articles (non-fiction); Correspondence column; Essays; Fiction/Narrative; Poems (original); Table of Contents; Title page

Repository

Irvine Townhouse, North Ayrshire

Reference

(Update May 2018: this volume is currently unavailable for viewing; further details forthcoming)

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

(currently unknown)

Date of Existence

1884?-1885?

Date of Magazine

Volume 1, selections 1884-5

Number of Issues

(currently unknown)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript (Cyclostyled manuscript, with lithographed title page by C.H.H. Walker, Liverpool)

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Liverpool Record Office, Central Library

Reference

050.8 SCR

 Overview

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

There is only one extant issue of this group’s manuscript magazine. It consists of 136 pages with 11 contributions bound in one hardcover volume. There does not appear to be a limit set to the length of the pieces (as was the case with some magazines): the four longest articles and essays are between 20 and 27 pages, with others being between 5 and 10. There are also three original poems (one in dialect), but no artwork appears in this issue.

The contributors either leave their pieces unsigned or they use a pen-name. However, these may all have been re-written by the magazine’s editors (?): it appears that there are only two different handwriting styles in the entire issue.

The first two articles in this miscellany are interesting as they relate the early history of the Institution and, along with a group photograph of the members that is dated 1856, we learn the histories of some of the early members. The last two pieces in the magazine are in fact obituaries of two former members.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

The Spoutmouth Institution (1848-1851), then became The Spoutmouth Bible Institution (22 September 1851-1940?)

Date of Existence

10 June 1848-1940?

Date of Magazine

No. II, 16 May 1873

Number of Issues

1 (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Annotations; Articles (non-fiction); Essays; Obituaries; Photograph (members); Poems (original); Serial article/story; Table of Contents; Title page

Repository

Glasgow City Archives

Reference

CH3/1281/16

Additional Notes

See also entry for Spoutmouth Bible Institution on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Overview

The mutual improvement society that produced this monthly magazine was made up of members of the Salem Methodist Church in Baptist Mills (an area in the northeast of Bristol). The church was founded in 1853 and located on Lower Ashley Road. (For a brief history of this church, see ‘Salem Chapel (Demolished), Baptist Mills, Bristol‘ on the Places of Worship Database website.)

We don’t know when the class was officially started as no other records from the group between 1886 and 1898 appear to have survived (see below). Happily, this lacuna can be filled from various articles in its magazine. In the mid-1880s, the President of the class was the then current minister, Reverend S. Heywood, and the group had two secretaries and an Executive Committee. The subscription charge was 2s per year. It was a mixed-gender class that met weekly, and like other groups of this type, its yearly sessions (October until March or April) included a range of activities, including the reading of original essays by society members followed by ‘criticisms’, hearing papers read by invited speakers, debates, extempore speaking, and social evenings and outings. The attendance records given in the October 1886 issue suggest that there may have been around 60 to 70 members (at least). The class also had its own library.

There are 19 extant issues of this magazine which are bound into three hardcover volumes (Vol. 2 having 7 issues, and Vols. 4 and 6 both having 6). The magazine was initially read aloud at society meetings and later bound, which was not unusual. According to the ‘Editorial’ in the October 1886 issue, the ‘choice of subjects [was] left entirely to the judgement and good taste of the writers’, and contributions on politics were even allowed, as long as the writer refrained from party politics (P.H. Taylor, ‘Editorial Notes’, Salem Chapel Mutual Improvement Society Monthly Magazine, ed. by P.H. Taylor, Vol. 2, No. 6, October 1886, p. 3). Authors were given the option of signing their own names or using a pen-name. Some of the readers wrote to the Editor to share their comments, which were then included in the next month’s issue.

Included in the magazine are regular features like: the ‘Review’, which gives an summary of the group’s recent activities; ‘Notices’, which advertises upcoming talks and events; the ‘Letters to the Editor’; and a correspondence column entitled, ‘Questions’, which is directed more towards the readers of the magazine rather than the Editor per se. It is only in Volume 6 that original artwork begins to be used as ornamentation or to illustrate the articles in which they appear.

There are a few records that have survived for the class dating from a bit later than the magazines: inserted into the front of Volume 6 are 16 pages selected from some of the minutes from the class’s minute books for the years 1896 to 1898, including Executive meetings and lists of members (1896-97, total of 52, and for 1897-98, total of 43).

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Salem Chapel Mutual Improvement Society

Date of Existence

1886?-1898?

Date of Magazine

Nos. 6-12, October 1886-April 1887; Nos. 19-24, October 1888-March 1889; Nos. 31-36, October 1890-March 1891

Number of Issues

19 (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Club notices; Correspondence column; Editorials; Essays; Fiction/Narratives; Letters to Editor; Membership lists; Poems (original); Readers’ Criticisms; Reviews (reports on group activities); Serial articles/stories; Sketches; Tables of Contents; Title pages

Repository

Bristol Archives

Reference

35123/S/P/1, 2(a), 2(b)

Overview

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

This was a first attempt at a magazine from this association, and either it was not a success or further issues have not been preserved. It contains thirteen articles written in different hands, with blank pages at the end of the volume for readers ‘to briefly record any remarks or criticism which they may have to make on the various papers’ (Preface). These pages are blank, so readers evidently did not respond as hoped. The editorial preface mentions the ‘youthful inexperience’ of writers and the ‘disadvantages against which we strive’, asking readers not to view contributions ‘in the strong light of professional standards.’

The magazine contains interesting accounts of ‘Local Government in India’ by a writer who worked in the British civil service and of churchgoing in Canada, in ‘On the Verge of the Backwoods’. The unsigned ‘Sitting on a Volcano!’ is particularly notable: it responds to Rev. Andrew Mearns’s famous pamphlet ‘The Bitter Cry of Outcast London’ in highlighting the plight of the poor, in Glasgow as well as London, but disagrees with his call for greater mission activity and religious education; arguing that good housing, food and clothing are the primary needs and that religion is secondary.

The magazine also contains a report on the Sandyford Church Literary Association and its activities, highlighting a rise in numbers, improvement in participation, and successful new monthly meetings involving the whole congregation. This report also mentions joint debates held with St George’s Literary Association and the Park Literary Institute (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

The magazine includes travel writing and accounts of work overseas, description of Scottish places with some illustrations, articles on steam navigation, Shakespeare, ‘Newspaper Politics’ and a satirical semi-fictional account of poetic ambition, ‘A Budding Bard.’

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Sandyford Church Literary Association (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1879-?

Date of Magazine

1883

Number of Issues

1

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Editorial; Essays; Fiction/Narrative; Readers’ Criticisms (pages left blank); Report; Title page

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

642424

Additional Notes

See also entry for Sandyford Church Literary Association on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

See also entries for Free St. George’s Literary Association, and The Park Literary Institution on Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Overview

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

St Martin’s Literary Society (London)

Date of Existence

1901?- 1904?

Date of Magazine

No. 1 (1901); No. 3, (1902); No. 4 (1903); No. 5 (1904)

Number of Issues

4

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Mostly typed, with some manuscript contributions

Contents and Contributions

Repository

City of Westminster Archives Centre, London

Reference

System ID: STM/1851/1/5/6-9; Finding No: 1851/37

Overview

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

St Mary’s Kirk Session (Literary Association) (Edinburgh)

Date of Existence

1886?-?

Date of Magazine

No. 2 (1886?), No. 3, Jun./Jul. 1886; No. 6, Feb. 1887

Number of Issues

3

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Repository

National Records of Scotland

Reference

CH2/139/72

Overview

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

St Thomas Institute, Stepney (London)

Date of Existence

1875-1881?

Date of Magazine

1876-1881

Number of Issues

22

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Hackney Archives Department

Reference

D/E/215/THO/1-20

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

(Currently unknown) (Dumfries)

Date of Existence

1891?-1894?

Date of Magazine

Vol. I, Jan. 1891-Sept. 1891

Number of Issues

9 lithograph issues (with 2 copies in total of Sept. 1891 at back of bound volume); 36 issues in print (bound in 3 hardcover volumes; also 3 individual issues from 1894)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Vol. I are all lithograph copies; Vols. II-IV print

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Dumfries and Galloway Regional Council Library Service, Ewart Library, Dumfries

Reference

[EWK] DB151(05) (this is also ref. for The Dragon, see below)

Additional Notes

See also entry for The Dragon.

Overview

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

St. Paul Street Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association (Aberdeen)

Date of Existence

18 Sept. 1862-?

Date of Magazine

Vol. I, Nos. 1-6-Vol. II, No. 8, Oct. 1865-Mar. 1866, Nov. 1866

Number of Issues

7 (the bound volume is missing Vol. II, No. 7, Oct. 1866)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Aberdeen City Library, Central Library

Reference

LO 205 Sal