Overview

This magazine was produced by a mutual improvement class based at Eastville Free Methodist Church, which was located on Fishponds Road in Eastville (northeast of Bristol). (For a brief history of this church see ‘Eastville Methodist Church (now Pentecostal City Mission), Eastville, Fishponds‘ on the Places of Worship Database website.) The lists of members at the front of the extant 1893 and 1894 issues have 26 and 24 names respectively. It was a mixed-gender class with perhaps a fairly equal number of men and women (there are several names on these lists where only the surname is given). No addresses are given after these names, but these can be found by consulting the entries for the parents in the church register, also available in the archives. The group members were pro-temperance, and two pieces by different authors in their magazine mention attending a Band of Hope meeting. (For more information about the Band of Hope, see the article, ‘Band of Hope‘ on the Spartacus Educational website.)

There are only two extant issues of the manuscript magazine that this class produced. These are roughly A5 in size, with a brown paper cover and are hand-stitched. It is unclear if there was a set production date for each issue (e.g. monthly, bi-monthly, etc.), but it might have been tied to the semester schedule. The format of the contributions vary: some are written solely on one side of the paper, whilst others are on both front and back, which is a bit usual for these magazines. All the contributions — the majority of which are essays on a variety of topics — are in the authors’ own handwriting. With few exceptions, all of the contributors and reviewers use their own initials. There is no original poetry and no illustrations or artwork in either issue. Readers were allowed one week to view the magazine.

The issues are compact not only in size but in the number of contributions: there are 68 pages (unpaginated) in total in the 1893 issue with 7 contributions followed by four readers’ responses over 10 pages in the ‘Notes and Comments’ section, and 30 pages with 5 contributions in the 1894 issue. Interestingly, whilst there are also a number of blank pages left for readers to provide their responses in the ‘Notes and Comments’ section in the later issue, none of the readers chose to use this space.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Eastville Free Methodist Mutual Improvement Class

Date of Existence

1894?-1895?

Date of Magazine

No. 1, October 1893 and No. 5, October 1894

Number of Issues

2 (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Annotations; Articles (non-fiction); Circulation Lists; Editorials; Essays; Extracts of published works; Letters to Editor; Magazine Rules; Poems (republished material); Readers’ Criticisms; Serial articles/stories; Tables of Contents;  Title pages

Repository

Bristol Archives & Record Office

Reference

40836/EP/95-96

Overview

There are nine extant issues of the manuscript magazine that was produced by this mutual improvement society. The title was taken from the poem, ‘Excelsior’, written in 1841 by the American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the poem’s message of struggling towards a righteous, distant goal was used as the group’s own precept. We do not know very much about the group itself as there are no other (known) records. Most likely, the society was associated with a local church in Liverpool as many of the contributions discuss religion and/or the Bible (e.g. a serial essay entitled, ‘Praising God, No. 2′), and it was firmly pro-temperance.

We do know that it was a fairly small society: there are 17 members listed in an (undated) magazine circulation list. It was a mixed-gender group, with 13 men and four unmarried women. The members lived in and around the Toxteth area of the city. (For more information about this area, see ‘History of Toxteth‘ on the Historic Liverpool website.) One of the women, however, lived in London.

Each issue of The Excelsior is approximately 100 pages with roughly 20 contributions apiece, and contain a mixture of prose and poetry, articles and essays, a couple of short musical scores, with a small number of original illustrations (mostly pen-and-ink, to which should be added the detailed artwork on the covers on Nos. 7, 8 and 10).

There are a couple of unique elements to this magazine. First, the contributors seemed to particularly like writing serials, both non-fiction and fictional pieces, with pieces commonly running through most of the issues. Second, the members appear to have taken the ‘improving’ element to heart, as beginning in the sixth issue, a ‘List of Errors in Spelling’ is added to the back, which ran up to five pages in issue No. 10. Finally, whilst not including a separate section for readers’ ‘criticisms’ per se, the Editor none-the-less allowed readers to write in to him with their remarks and he would include them in the next issue, a practice that readers took to with particular enthusiasm, or rather with vehemence; many of these are long letters outlining in detail the particular merits — and by no means neglecting the demerits — of the contributions.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

(currently unknown)

Date of Existence

1860?-1862?

Date of Magazine

No. 1, 1 October 1860; No. 2, 1 November 1860;  No. 3, [no date given], December 1860; [No. 4], January and February 1861; No. 5, March & April 1861; No. 6, 1 December 1861; No. 7, January 1862; No. 8, February 1862; [No. 9 no longer extant?]; No. 10, April 1862

Number of Issues

9

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Annotations; Art/Illustrations (original); Article s(non-fiction); Circulation List; Correspondence column; Editorials; Essays; Extracts (previously published works); Fiction/Narratives; Hymn; Letters to Editor; Lists of spelling errors; Music; Newspaper cutting; Poems (original); Poems (republished material); Poems (w/ original illustrations); Prefaces; Puzzle; Readers’ Criticisms; Serial articles/stories; Tables of Contents; Title pages

Repository

Liverpool Record Office, Central Library

Reference

H050 EXC

The mutual improvement group that produced this magazine was based at River Terrace Church (River Terrace was later renamed Colebrooke Row), Islington, London. The church was built in 1834 for its Scottish congregation. The River Terrace Young Men’s Association later became The River Terrace Bible Class, before changing again to the Islington Presbyterian Church Young Men’s Association in 1862.

There are two minute books (also housed in the London Metropolitan Archives) and three extant volumes of a manuscript magazine from this later group (see also LMA catalogue for the records of the earlier River Terrace groups). From these, we know that the association was made up of young Scottish men that met weekly at the church between December and June, a session that was a bit unusual for this type of society.  The object of the association was the ‘moral, intellectual and religious improvement of the Young men connected with the church’. Women were allowed to join as full members in January 1891. Four years after its founding, the group started its own manuscript magazine for its members.

In 1866, the first issue of The Aemulus was produced. The contributions to the issue were previously read aloud at the society’s ‘Magazine Nights’. ‘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.

The 1866 volume serves as a ‘typical’ example of the later volumes. There are 35 prose pieces, 14 poems (of which two that are listed as such in the front ‘Index’ are acrostics), one musical score for piano and one voice, three illustrations, and six photographs of Office Bearers. According to the ‘Preface’, the pieces were produced over the course of one year, and nineteen members and two non-members contributed.

As the Editor, Thomas William Thacker, wrote at the beginning of the volume, ‘[t]his manuscript magazine was started to give the members of the Islington Presbyterian Church Young Men’s Association a means of committing to paper thoughts more or less matured. It is strictly anonymous: and few beyond the fellow members have seen the parts as they were issued month by month.’ While the group continued to meet until 1894 (at least), it is currently unknown if they continued to produce their magazine after 1878.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Islington Presbyterian Church Young Men’s Association (London)

Date of Existence

1862-1894?

Date of Magazine

Vol. I, ‘(Parts IX)’, 1866; Vol. III, 1868-1869; Vol. III [sic], 1878

Number of Issues

3

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Editorials; Essays; Indexes; Lists of Office Bearers; Magazine Rules; Music; Photographs (members); Poems (original); Prefaces; Puzzles; Title pages

Repository

London Metropolitan Archives

Reference

LMA/4303/E/04/015;
LMA/4303/E/04/016;
LMA/4303/E/04/017

Overview

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

The society was formed in 1863 by young men from the congregation of the Barony Church (Church of Scotland), which was built in 1799 and located near the Glasgow Cathedral. The group later changed its name to the Barony Young Men’s Association.

This society produced manuscript magazines by and for their members between 1863 and 1875. There are six volumes housed in the University of Strathclyde Archives (GB 249 T-MIN/18/1/1-6): July 1863; August 1863; September 1863; August 1864; March 1869; and 1873-1875. The earliest magazine that we have, the July 1863 volume, is actually the third that they issued.

The August 1863 issue of the Barony M.S. Magazine is fairly typical of mutual improvement society magazines, which are almost always miscellanies, containing a mixture of prose and poetry, fiction and non-fiction pieces on various topics, along with original artwork and even music. A unique feature of this genre is the readers’ ‘Criticisms’: readers would write their comments about the articles into the back of the magazine after they were done reading it. This society was unusual, however, in that they had a very active critical community of readers. The August 1863 issue, for example (a digitised copy of which is available, see below), contains a remarkable 25 pages of criticisms.

Their August 1863 issue has been digitised courtesy of the University of Strathclyde Archives and is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Barony Mutual Improvement Society (later became the Barony Young Men’s Association) (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1863-1875?

Date of Magazine

1863-1875

Number of Issues

6

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Advertisements; Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Club notices; Editorials; Essays; Fiction/Narratives; Poems (original); Readers’ Criticisms; Serial articles/stories; Tables of Contents; Title pages

Repository

University of Strathclyde Archives

Reference

GB 249 T-MIN/18/1

Additional Notes

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

This is not the same as the Barony Free Church Literary Society. For more information about this society, see entry for Barony Free Church Literary Society on Glasgow’s Literary Bonds website.

From the University of Strathclyde Archives online catalogue:

‘Scope and content
Manuscript magazines issued under the auspices of the Barony Mutual Improvement Society, later the Barony Young Men’s Association. Subjects include religion, local history, natural history, travel, natural philosophy, mechanics. The editors were Thomas Martin, Archibald Campbell, John Goldie, Edward Railton Catterns, George Smeaton Rodger, W. Ferrie Anderson and James Meek. The contributions were bound on the premises of Robert Nelson, Princes Court, Buchanan Street. All volumes carry the bookplate of the Barony Association’s Library’ [accessed 21 January 2018].

Overview

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

The earlier manuscript magazine dates from January 1871, and is a bit smaller than other periodicals of this type (approximately A5 size). According to the Editor, this was the third magazine that the society had produced in the 1870-71 session, thus it was a monthly periodical.

The magazine has 118 pages and includes 11 contributions. This issue is framed within a report on the meeting of the society regarding the production of the current issue, which quickly breaks down into a story-telling and singing session, with members taking it in turns. The contributions are mostly prose, with only three poems. However, many of the prose contributions include a combination of poems, songs and illustrations. The contributors are all anonymous. The illustrations are pen-and-ink, and the title page is pen-and-ink and watercolour.

The later print magazine from 1883 is housed in the University of Glasgow Special Collections. According to the Editor’s ‘Preface’, the contributions to the magazine are by the current members of the congregation or those who were formerly connected with it. The illustrations are, however, almost entirely by ‘outsiders’.

This magazine has 80 pages with 19 contributions. Including the frontispiece, there are 10 illustrations, all of which are not included in the pagination (this number does not include the illustration of the church on the title page). There are slightly more prose pieces than poems, numbering 11 and 8 respectively. Five contributors use pen-names and there are two unsigned pieces. The rest of the essays and poems are signed with either the authors’ own name or initials. There is one article that is possibly by a woman entitled, ‘Lords of Creation’, a piece which challenges men’s so-called superiority, and is signed by ‘Female Modesty’.

This literary society magazine is of note as at least three of its contributors were–or were to become–men of some import in the community. The first contribution in the magazine is a nature poem called ‘A Wild Geranium’, and is written by Hugh Macmillan. Macmillan was the then current minister of the church, and the poem reflects his keen interest in botany. (For more information about Macmillan, see ‘Hugh Macmillan‘ on The Glasgow Story website).

The second piece, a review of a new biography of James Clerk Maxwell, which includes an overview of his life, is written by James Brown. This was probably Reverend James Brown. (For more information about Brown, see ‘2nd Lieutenant Alexander Brown‘ on The University of Glasgow Story website.)

The last example is an article entitled ‘Some Glasgow Churches’ that was written by A. M’Gibbon and was accompanied by his wonderfully detailed drawings of the churches he discusses. The author/illustrator was almost certainly Alexander M’Gibbon (alternatively McGibbon) (1861?-1938), who, at the time of the publication of this magazine, was working as a draughtsman for John Honeyman. M’Gibbon later became an influential teacher at the Glasgow School of Art. (For more information about M’Gibbon, see the entry for ‘Alexander McGibbon‘ on The Dictionary of Scottish Architects, 1660-1980 website.)

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Free St. Peter’s Young Men’s Association (later became Free St. Peter’s Literary Society) (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1871?-?

Date of Magazine

January 1871; 1883

Number of Issues

2 (extant)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript (January 1871); Print (1883) (Glasgow: Dunn & Wright, 1883)

Contents and Contributions

Annotation; Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Circulation list (1871); Editorial (x2) (1871); Essays; Fiction/Narrative; Fiction/Narrative (vernacular) (1871); Frontispiece; Poems (original); Preface; Table of Contents

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections (MLSC) (Jan. 1871 issue)

University of Glasgow Special Collections (UGSC) (1883 issue)

Reference

321129, GO52 BLY (MLSC)

Sp Coll Robertson Bf68-b.23 (UGSC)

Additional Notes

The Free St Peter’s Literary Society Magazine (1883) housed in the University of Glasgow Special Collections is part of the Alexander Robertson collection, and is item 8 of 9 bound together.

See also entry for Free St. Peter’s Young Men’s Association (later became Free St. Peter’s Literary Society) on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

Overview

Members of this literary society were part of the congregation of Bridge Street United Presbyterian Church, located in Musselburgh, East Lothian, to the east of Edinburgh. (For a brief history of the church, see the National Records of Scotland catalogue entry.)

There are three extant volumes of the manuscript magazine that this society produced. The ‘Index’ at the start of the 1890-1891 volume lists the contributions by the date of the meeting at which they were read aloud. This tells us that the society held regular ‘Magazine Nights’ during their yearly sessions. Thus, almost all of the contributions included in the magazine were intended to be heard first and then read later.

‘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.

The 1890-1892 volume is a ‘typical’ issue containing a mixture of prose non-fiction articles and essays, original poems, along with a few letters to the Editor. There is no artwork in any of the issues. Interestingly, readers’ criticisms — the comments written into the magazine by readers on the various aspects of the contributions and/or the magazine itself — are not included in this magazine, but a regular feature entitled ‘Appendix’ (later called ‘Editor’s Remarks’) written by the Editor works in a similar manner. This reports on the society’s magazine nights and provides us with some indication of the reception of each piece that was read aloud. In addition, it discusses the ‘Appendix of Criticism’ that was also read aloud at the meetings, which did include comments about the previous issue of the magazine.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Bridge Street United Presbyterian Literary Society (Edinburgh)

Date of Existence

1890?-1901?

Date of Magazine

Vol. II, 1890-1891; Vol. IV, 1892-1893; 1899-1901

Number of Issues

3

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Articles (non-fiction); Editorials; Essays; Indexes; Letters to Editor; Poems (original); Reports; Table of Contents; Title page

Repository

National Records of Scotland

Reference

CH3/1495/12;
CH3/1495/13;
CH3/1495/14

This magazine was created by some members of staff employed by James Budgett and Son Limited. This company began as a wholesale grocer in 1857 in central London, and became a wholesale tea and coffee company in 1875. In this year, they moved up the road to Eastcheap, while the business for its sugar, rice and fruit was conducted by a new company that remained at their old premises at Monument Yard.

The magazine was intended to be ‘the commercial Edition’ of the popular and hugely influential Punch, and its creators were keen to make clear that it was produced ‘off the firm’s premises’ and not on company time. Its audience was to include the other employees of the company, and the hope was that they might contribute to its numbers: ‘We cordially invite suggestions and shall be glad to receive any items of news or gossip likely to prove of interest to our readers’ (W. Aitch, ‘Editorial’, Budgett’s Budget, No. 1, Vol. I, April 1909, p. 8). The contents of the issues did indeed include such ‘news or gossip’, and also regular features such as: amusing biographies of staff members; cartoons; ‘Chatter’, which consists of in-jokes regarding company employees and policies, and humorous poetry and ‘Proverbs’ on the same; and an editorial column at the back.

The first issue was produced in April 1909, and issues appeared monthly for the following five months. The next issues were created in March and April 1910, between April and June 1914, and the last extant issue appeared in October 1919, for a total of 11 numbers usually consisting of eight pages each. The production of this magazine was subject to the business cycle, at least in the case of the first year of its production, and no magazines were produced when the fruit season ended.

While the first issues were hand-written, starting with the April 1914 issue, the magazine was typescript. Beyond a change in the use of technology, by at least 1919, the readership (and contributors?) included women company and magazine staff members. The contributions in the last extant issue often mention the First World War and the national railway strike, reflecting the personal and commercial impact of these events on staff and the company itself.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

(Company staff at James Budgett and Son Limited) (London)

Date of Existence

1909?-1910?

Dates of Magazine

Apr.-Sept. 1909, Mar.-Apr. 1910, Apr. and June 1914, Oct. 1919

Number of Issues

11

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript and later typescript

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Biographies of staff; Cartoons; Editorials ; Jokes; Photographs; Poems (original); Prefaces; Tables of Contents; Title pages

Repository

London Metropolitan Archives

Reference

CLC/B/133/MS20372

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

George Tawse, one of the founding Literary and Scientific Institute members, wrote a light-hearted and affectionate recollection of the society’s early days in 1846, in which he depicted its humble beginnings as eight or ten “mere lads”, meeting on Monday evenings in a “mere garret – and a very poor garret – as garrets go[.]” This garret was the attic of the Cramb family house, shoemakers “of a political and intellectual cast, as shoemakers often are,” and was located at the east end of Dundee High Street (barely five minutes’ walk from Lamb’s Coffee House in the Murraygate, where the Dundee Literary Society met).

Their first concerns were in discussing literary and scientific affairs, but their minds soon turned to the prospect of a manuscript magazine, as a way to ‘vent’ their energy and intelligence. As well as Tawse and two brothers from the Cramb family, the original members included geologist and journalist James Adie, who emigrated to Canada around four years after the society’s foundation. At the time, Adie was known among his friends for his love of verse, ‘if in rhyme,’ and his recitations of poems by Scott, Byron, and in particular James Hogg, from which he gained the nickname ‘Kilmeny.’

An earlier recollection of the beginnings of the Literary and Scientific Institute was written by James Barnet, mostly in memory of Adie, and appeared in the periodical The Scottish American in 1890. He describes himself and three other boys ‘just in their teens,’ including Adie, who “took it into their heads that they would form a mutual improvement society.” At the time of publication, Barnet said this took place ‘around fifty years ago,’ placing the events described around 1840.

Their meetings took place domestically at first, in Barnet’s house and then in Adie’s, before the “first mutual improvement society in town” grew from the small group. If Barnet joined the group for the transition to Cramb’s garret, Tawse does not seem to remember him. Similarly to the Literary Institute, the young members of this group took turns at presenting an essay each meeting, but in the early days this did not have to be original work. Barnet, when nominated for the first essay, found a story about Genghis Khan in the Chartist Circular to read, despite a total prior lack of knowledge on the subject.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Dundee Literary and Scientific Institute

Date of Existence

1844 -1848

Date of Magazine

1844-1847 (or possibly 1855?), Vol. 1?-Vol. 2

Number of Issues

2

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Articles (non-fiction); Editorial; Essays; Letter to ‘Critic’; Letter to Editor; Magazine Rules; Poems (original); Title page

Repository

Dundee District Central Library, The Wellgate

Reference

D22022, Lamb Collection, 265(17)

Additional Notes

See also Dundee Natural History and Literary Magazine.

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.

Overview

In the 1830s and 1840s, there appears to have been a strong connection between natural history and literature in Dundee (see also The Wreath of Wild Flowers and the Literary and Scientific Institute). This magazine divided its pages between Botany, Gleanings in Natural History, Ornithology, Geology, Poetry, Reviews, and Miscellaneous (which included travel reports or editors’ notes.)

Contributors to this magazine published under their real names, and these include botanist G. Lawson, who produced most of the content, John Sime (a schoolteacher who was active in several societies) and John Findlay. The only pseudonym is the “Mountain Muse,” almost certainly the poet Alexander Wilson, a weaver from Alyth who moved into Dundee, who contributed a piece on “The Plants of the Bible.” Another weaver poet James Gow, a Chartist and the author of “Lays of the Loom,” also contributed a poem entitled “The Snow Drop” to an issue of the magazine.

Gow and Wilson knew each other from an earlier group known as “The Republic of Letters” (see ‘Additional Notes’ below), politically active writers who met in Dundee pubs and weaving sheds in the 1830s. James Adie, who contributed geographical essays, was also involved in the Dundee Literary and Scientific Institute around this time. He later emigrated to Canada, where he died in a snowstorm.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

(Currently unknown if this is a formal society)

Date of Existence

Jul. 1846?-?

Date of Magazine

Vol. I., Dundee, 1846, Jul. to Dec. 1846; Vol, II., Jan. to Jun. 1847; Vol. III, Jul. to Dec. 1847

Number of Issues

18 issues (not extant?)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript

Contents and Contributions

Articles (scientific); Editorial; Essays; Poems (original); Review; Table of Contents

Repository

Dundee District Central Library, The Wellgate

Reference

365(5), Lamb Collection

Additional Notes

See also The Dundee Literary Society’s Magazine, and The Attic Journal.

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.