Overview

There are 12 issues of this monthly print magazine dating from June 1887 to May 1888 which were bound together in one volume in 1888. The entire volume is a total of 240 pages with each issue having 20 pages.

In the ‘Preface’, to Our Mutual Friend — a title chosen from the work of Charles Dickens —  it is stated that the periodical was founded by members of the Bold Street Wesleyan Improvement Society and intended for local circulation, but the group desired to have it preserved in a more permanent form. Members of other ‘improving’ groups in Warrington and the local region also contributed. The magazine was non-political and non-denominational, but was more generally framed as a Christian magazine.

Following the ‘Preface’, there is a ‘List of Contributors’. Of the 32 listed, most of them are men, of which there are seven Reverends and one Alderman. There are also four women contributors, three being unmarried women and one married.

The ‘Index’ at the front lists the contents by month. This miscellany contains mostly prose articles and essays along with serial fictional stories, with about a quarter of each issue being original poetry.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

[Various Literary and Mutual Improvement Societies of Warrington, St Helens and the Surrounding District]

Date of Existence

1887?-1888?

Date of Magazine

1 June 1887-1 May 1888

Number of Issues

Vol. I (12 issues)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Print

Contents and Contributions

Articles (non-fiction); Ballad (original); Correspondence column; Editorials; Essays; Fiction/Narratives; Hymn; Index; List of contributors; News (local branches of society); Poems (original); Preface; Title page

Repository

Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, held at Cheshire Record Office (Chester)

Reference

EMC 21/5334/149

Overview

A summary of the history of the Glasgow Foundry Boys’ Religious Society, Wellington Palace Branch is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).

This magazine is printed in double columns and laid out in newspaper format. It is written in the same hand throughout. It was produced by a large Christian workers’ association and articles have a strong focus on Christian self-improvement, education, temperance and morality for the young (see below). The magazine is anomalous as although it is a society magazine, it was part of a much larger enterprise and is not clearly part of a collective or shared initiative. A cost of one half-penny is listed and the magazine includes paid advertisements, suggesting that it was in part a commercial enterprise.

There were only twelve (lithographed?) issues of this monthly magazine ever produced, and these are bound together in one hardcover volume. The, apparently, enthusiastic members of the Wellington Branch of the Foundry Boys’ Religious Society started the periodical as they felt ‘the want of some proper medium for the expression by the Workers of the numberless suggestions and hints that spring up within them and clamour for utterance’, suggestions which were not being brought properly to attention at the Council meetings held by the larger parent organisation (‘Introductory’, The Foundry Boy, No. 1, January 1886, p. 1).

The magazine was non-sectarian, being aimed more broadly at Christian readers, and it reported on the various aspects of the branch’s work, along with the meetings, activities and events held in local branches across Glasgow, which, presumably, did not have their own magazines. Each issue is eight pages and cost one halfpenny, but by July 1886, this was increased to one penny. Contributions are almost entirely anonymous but a few are signed with the author’s name (usually a minister) or a pen-name.

Copies were available either by post or at the Christian Institute and at various local booksellers. (For more information about the Christian Institute, see ‘Christian Institute‘ on The Glasgow Story website.) In addition, issues could be had at selected booksellers in Paisley, Greenock, Kilmarnock, Rothesay, Coatbridge, Edinburgh and Dundee (‘The Foundry Boy’, ‘To Subscribers’, The Foundry Boy, No. 7, July 1886, p. 3). Presumably, the subscriptions did not cover the costs of production, as advertisements can be found amongst the articles and particularly on the last two pages of each issue.

The final issue of the magazine appeared in December 1886, when the Editor/s announced its discontinuation for reasons that are left ambiguous.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Glasgow Foundry Boys’ Religious Society, Wellington Palace Branch

Date of Existence

1867-1914?

Date of Magazine

Jan. 1886-Dec. 1886

Number of Issues

12

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Print (lithograph?)

Contents and Contributions

Address; Advertisements; Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Attendance records (totals); Bible lessons; Branch statistics; Correspondence columns; Directories; Editorials; Essays; Hymn; Letters to Editor; Miscellaneous (announcements); News (local branches of society); Poems (original); Reports; Serial articles/stories; Sketches

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference

Mitchell (GC) 206 98783

Additional Information

See also entry for Glasgow Foundry Boys’ Religious Society, Wellington Palace Branch on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.

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.