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

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

Overview

A summary of the history of the Queen’s Park, St. George’s United Presbyterian, UK Church Literary Institute is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

There are three extant volumes of this society’s magazine. The first two are in manuscript and the later one was put into print (see details below). The first volume, produced in January 1874, is currently in need of conservation, and the pages suffer from water damage. The information that we can extract from the few pages that are viewable is limited. Nonetheless, from the list of readers, we know that there were at least 33 readers of the magazine (it is not possible to view all the names on the list due to the state of the magazine). It was not unusual, however, for these magazines to be passed among family and friends outwith the ‘official’ list of readers. There are 150 pages in this volume, which includes a combination of poetry and prose, along with possibly a photograph and original artwork. It is not possible to determine the number of contributions.

The second volume has 179 pages with 14 contributions that include essays, articles, poems on a variety of subjects and some original artwork. Contributors either chose not to sign their names, or used a pen-name, a symbol (↑), or an initial or initials at the end of their pieces.

The 1877-78 volume of this society’s magazine is published, and contains the numbers for January, April, July, and October 1877, as well as January, April, July, and October 1878. From the front endpaper, we know that the magazine was part of the Queen’s Park East United Free Church Congregational Library. It is possible that the previous volumes were also part of the library’s collection. The preface informs us that this volume was put into print as manuscript copies were found to be ‘unsuited to the rapidly increasing membership’. In appearing in print, the Editor hoped that the medium would place the periodical alongside other (more established) ‘instructive and entertaining’ magazines.

The entire volume is 288 pages, with each issue running between 25 and 30 pages each. There is a table of contents at the front for the entire volume, which contains a collection of articles, essays, poems, and original poetry as well as extracts from published poems by Chaucer, Spenser, and Tennyson (to name a few) in articles that discuss these authors and their works.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Queen’s Park U.P. Church Literary Institute (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1872-1927?

Date of Magazine

Vol. 1 (January 1874); Vol. 2 (January 1875); January 1877-78

Number of Issues

10 (extant) (see above ‘Overview’)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript, later print (The Queen’s Park Magazine: Conducted by Members of the Queen’s Park Literary Institute, Crosshill, Glasgow. 1877-1878 (Glasgow: John Mackie, [1878])

Contents and Contributions

Art/Illustrations (original); Article (non-fiction); Essay; Extracts of published works; Fiction/Narrative Fiction/Narrative; Frontispiece; Poem (original); Preface; Table of Contents; Title page

Repository

Glasgow City Archives

Reference

CH3/1471/42-44

Additional Notes

See also entry for Queen’s Park, St. George’s UP, UK Church Literary Institute on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

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