This society was most likely based at the Selkirk West United Free Church in the Scottish Borders. The information that we currently have on its magazine comes solely from an article published in the early twentieth century in a local newspaper, The Border Advertiser.

According to the article, on 6 March 1905, the society met in the church hall to hear the magazine’s editor, Mr W. F. Robertson, read aloud six contributions to the society’s magazine. These included: ‘An Anomaly’; ‘The Power of Music’; ‘Britain’s Industrial [illegible]’; ‘Suggestions’; ‘My Window “Serial” Chap. iii’; and ‘The Ascent’ of Man’ (‘West UF. Church Literary Society’, The Border Advertiser, 07 March 1905, p. 3).

There were apparently not many present at this particular meeting, but nonetheless, ‘[t]he articles were well received by a small but appreciative audience’.

Further research in the local newspapers and archives may well bring further information on the group and its magazine to light.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

West United Free Church Literary Society

Date of Existence

1905?-?

Date of Magazine

06 March 1905 (contributions to the magazine were read aloud at the society’s ‘magazine night’)

Number of Issues

(at least) 1 (not extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Articles (non-fiction); Serial article/story

Repository

Library Headquarters, Selkirk

Reference

N/A

Overview

According to the ‘Preface’ of the 1849 volume, The Society for Mutual Improvement was formed in 1846. Since that time, it had admitted 48 men (see below) and had 108 essays delivered at its meetings. The society had its own library for its members’ use in which it was estimated there were between two and three hundred volumes. The object of the society was ‘the improvement of the Minds of its Members in Useful and Entertaining knowledge’ (‘Laws and Constitution, 1849’, The Society for Mutual Improvement, Edinburgh, in The Weekly Miscellany, Nos. 1-26, 02 February 1849 – 25 July 1849, p. viii).

The group met weekly on Friday nights at 7pm, but the venue is not mentioned (possibly somewhere in the New Town?). The subscription fee was 4d per quarter. There is no list of readers in this volume, and, with the exception of the Office Bearers — a list of which is found at the front of the volume — we don’t know the members’ names or addresses. It is unclear if the 48 members stated to have been admitted since the society’s founding represented the then current state of its membership: in February 1849, the number of members is given as 22, with only about half of the members attendant at the meetings (‘A Correspondent’, ‘Correspondence’, The Weekly Miscellany, 9 February 1849, p. 16).

The magazine (the full title of which is The Weekly Miscellany; Containing Contributions from various Members of The Society for Mutual Improvement) ‘originated in a desire for benefiting the Society with which it is connected by furnishing a medium for the interchange of sentiment between its Members’ (James Boyd, ‘Preface’, The Weekly Miscellany, p. iv). There are 26 issues bound together in one hardcover volume. With very few exceptions, each issue is eight pages with between four and five short contributions apiece written by various members of the society using a nom-de-plume, all of which are re-written by James Boyd, the Editor-cum-Treasurer. 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. It also helped to give a uniformity to the magazine, which, for some societies — including this one — was of some import.

The issues contain a mixture of essays and articles on various topics, and some serial fictional pieces along with original poetry. Beginning in May 1849, it also includes a few extracts from published authors (e.g. Samuel Johnson, Saint Basil, William Haslitt) as filler material at the very end of an issue. There is no original artwork in any of the issues.

What is interesting about this magazine is that the society seemed to use it as a magazine-cum-minute book: included in each issue is a piece entitled ‘Society for Mutual Improvement’, which records the details of the essay given at the previous week’s meeting, and includes a summary of the ‘criticism’ (i.e. the comments made by members) that followed. Debates were usually held after the essays, and a note of the subject and some general comments are included. Typically, these things are recorded in a society’s minute book rather than its magazine.

A ‘Correspondence’ section is a regular feature in these issues. Members wrote letters to the Editor suggesting improvements for various aspects of the society meetings or the magazine (or both), or indeed for the members themselves. These letters could include criticism of the criticisms. This section thus acted as a dynamic discussion forum for society members.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

The Society for Mutual Improvement (Edinburgh)

Date of Existence

October 1846-1849?

Date of Magazine

Nos. 1 – 26, 02 February 1849 – 25 July 1849

Number of Issues

26

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Articles (non-fiction); Correspondence column; Essays; Extracts of published works; Filler; Index; Laws and Constitution; List of Office Bearers; Poems (original); Preface; Serial articles/stories; Title pages

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

Mitchell (AL) 358075

Overview

This magazine is in the handwriting of William Gardiner (1809-1852), aged 25 when the first issue was compiled. Gardiner’s work appears under the pseudonym Sylvanus. All of the contributors appear under classically alluding pseudonyms, including Daphnus, Corydon and Damon, but no others have been traced.

Gardiner was a poet and amateur botanist who would become well-regarded in the natural science circles of 19^th century Scotland. He left school at an early age and was apprenticed as an umbrella-maker, a trade he continued to work in while pursuing literary and scientific interests outside of work. He also combined these interests by including poems on the moral and spiritual meanings of plants in some of his botanical works, including his most popular, The Flora of Forfarshire (Dundee: McCosh, Park & Drewar, 1848).

Gardiner’s interest in poetry began early in life, likely inspired by his father, who had published two collections of poetry during Gardiner’s childhood. In his teens, he kept a “Literary Scrap Book and Poetical Miscellany,” in which he transcribed copies of poetry from periodicals, books and other sources. While there is no indication this was intended for an audience beyond himself, it may have inspired him to undertake a similar project with interested friends.

All the issues of The Wreath of Wild Flowers contain a list of readers, and later, addresses are also given. The “W. Jackson” listed in the first issue may be tailor-turned-naturalist William Jackson (or his son of the same name, who would be fourteen at the time), both of whom were part of the same social circles as Gardiner and also became respected self-educated scientists. The authors’ links to natural history circles are evident in many ways. The back pages contain updates on the progress of “The Amateur Naturalist’s Repository,” either inviting submissions or noting it is on hiatus due to having too many mosses and insects to collect.

The second issue notes that it is “requested to be kept particularly clean,” and that readers may keep it for three days. By the third issue in 1836, the allocated time has been reduced to two days. This issue also lists street addresses for its readers. They are all based in central Dundee, often in industrial areas like the Scouringburn, suggesting a mainly working-class readership. Despite the warning, all the extant issues have been subjected to some minor spillages at some point.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

(‘Private distribution amongst small group of readers’) (Dundee)

Date of Existence

1834?-1836?

Date of Magazine

1(1)-1(3), Mar. 1834-Apr. 1836

Number of Issues

3

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Essays; Magazine Rules; News (local branches of society); Poems (original); Title page

Repository

Dundee District Central Library, The Wellgate

Reference

D22011

Additional Notes

See also Dundee Natural History and Literary Magazine, and Gems of Poesy.

These magazines were collected in the 1860s by A.C. Lamb, a Dundee temperance hotelier. Many of the societies represented met on premises owned by either himself or, in earlier decades, in his father Thomas’ coffee house. Lamb was often involved in society life himself, and his collection of over 450 boxes covers a wide range of material relating to literature, poetry, culture and politics in Victorian Dundee. For more information on this material, please contact local.history@leisureandculturedundee.com.

On Overview

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

There are three extant issues of this magazine, which together contain an eclectic mixture of prose and poetry, original artwork (pencil, pen-and-ink, and watercolour being the most popular media), along with original music compositions.

The 1883-84 issue has 153 pages with 21 contributions. After each piece, there are readers’ ‘criticisms’, or discussions on the work’s positive and negative points that were written on the blank sheets of paper that were left for this purpose. On pages 146-51 there can be found the society’s syllabus, Constitution, programmes for various meetings and musical evenings, and a notice for a local Parliamentary election.  Contributors — which included men and women, members and non-members — used their own names or pen-names to sign their pieces. At the very back there is an index. The later 1887-88 and 1888 magazines are similar in also being miscellanies that include readers’ criticisms, with 203 pages and twenty contributions in the former, and 201 pages and sixteen contributions in the latter.

In each of the issues, there is a list of ‘Readers’ along with their respective addresses. There are 34 readers in the 1883-84 issue, 32 in the 1887-88 number, and 29 listed in the 1888 issue, which means that this group was of a relatively modest size and fairly stable in its membership, if these years can be said to be representative.

A full case study of this society and its magazine was published by Lauren Weiss in 2016 (see Lauren Weiss, ‘The Manuscript Magazines of the Wellpark Free Church Young Men’s Literary Society’, in Media and Print Culture Consumption in Nineteenth-Century Britain: The Victorian Reading Experience, ed. by Paul Raphael Rooney and Anna Gasperini (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 53-73).

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Wellpark Free Church Young Men’s Literary Society (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1883?-1888?

Dates of Magazine

Vol. II, No. 1 (1883-84); Vol. II, No. 1 (1887-88); 1888

Number of Issues

3 (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Circulation Lists; Constitution; Editorials; Essays; Fiction/Narratives; Frontispiece; Index; Letter to ‘Critic’; Letters to Editor; Magazine Rules; Maps; Music; Notice (printed); Poems (original); Programme; Readers’ criticisms; Sketches; Syllabus; Table of Contents; Title page

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

1. Mitchell (AL) 428697 (1883-84 magazine);

2. Mitchell (AL), 428698-99 (1887-1888, and 1888 magazines) (Note: there are three manuscript magazines but only two separate listings in the online catalogue)

Additional Notes

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

Overview

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Wesley Guild (Bainbridge Memorial Methodist Church, Newcastle upon Tyne)

Date of Existence

1896-present

Dates of Magazine

1904-05 (Vols. 24, 25); 1908-09 (Vols. 28, 29); 1909-1910 (Vol. 30); 1910-11 (Vol. 31); 1912-13; 1913-14; 1914-15; 1922-23

Number of Issues

8 (within the time range of this study, 1904-1914)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript and typescript

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Tyne & Wear Archives (Newcastle)

Reference

C.NC8/19/1-8

Overview

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

(Currently unknown) (Hertford)

Date of Existence

Apr.-May 1911?

Date of Magazine

April-May 1911?

Number of Issues

2

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Repository

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies (HALS) (Hertford)

Reference

DE/FJO/A11/71-72