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

Whilst becoming more proficient in their rhetorical skills at their meetings, the purpose of starting a society magazine was so that members might improve their writing. The preface is in part a manifesto for the magazine, and quotes Lord Bacon: ‘reading makes a full man, speaking a ready man, and writing a correct man’. This was to become an oft-used phrase by literary societies more generally over the course of the nineteenth century.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Literary Debating Society (Glasgow)

Date of Existence

1845?-1846?

Date of Magazine

Nos. 1-3, 1 December 1845 – 13 February 1846

Number of Issues

3

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Print

Contents and Contributions

Articles (non-fiction); Notice (printed); Poem (translation); Preface; Song (vernacular)

Repository

University of Glasgow Special Collections

Reference

The Literary Magazine, ed. by members of the Literary Debating Society, No. 1 (Glasgow: Printed by George Richardson, 1845); The Literary Magazine, ed. by members of the Literary Debating Society, Dec. 1845-Feb. 1846 (Glasgow: George Richardson 1846) (Sp Coll Mu1-d.13; Sp Coll RB 3049)

[Note: the University of Glasgow Special Collections holds two copies]

Additional Notes

From the University of Glasgow online catalogue: ‘Library holds: No. 1-3, 1 Dec. 1845-13 Feb. 1846. Copy at Mu1-d.13 has front and back covers of no.1 & 2, and front cover of no. 3, bound in. Copy at RB 3049 is item 1 of 5 bound together’ [accessed 31 January 2018].

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

This magazine was founded by Frances Martin, an influential foundress of the College for Working Women (Queen Square, Bloomsbury) which was to take Martin’s name following her death. (For more information about the College for Working Women — later the Frances Martin College for Women — see the article, ‘College for Working Women‘, on the UCL Bloomsbury Project website.) Twelve years after the founding of the college, Martin decided that there was a need for a magazine for the benefit of its students and teachers. It was also to be open to external contributors who supported the college.

There are two issues of The College News, A Quarterly Magazine. There are three (extant) copies of the first issue, one of which is in Martin’s own handwriting (she acted as the magazine’s Editor for the first two issues). This is only seven pages, six of which comprise Martin’s ‘Address to the Readers’. Essentially, it is a prospectus for a new journal and lays out the need for a magazine that would act as a means of communication between students and teachers, and to share news about the college and its activities. In addition, she makes suggestions for other features for future issues: a section on the current business climate; the ‘News of the Quarter’ on college classes, meetings and socials; a ‘Personal News’ column on marriages, births, deaths, emigrations and promotions; and ‘Illustrations and Original Contributions’, that would include poetry, prose and artwork. The remaining page announces a forthcoming reading by the actress, Mrs Bernard Beere, that was to be held at the college, and a list of the type of ‘Contributions Requested’.

The second issue was produced eight months later and has twenty-one contributions, which include a variety of materials: there are non-fiction articles, essays, various club and society reports, a travel piece accompanied by by original pen-and-ink illustrations, two acrostic puzzles, along with various cuttings from presumably other College printed publications, and a newspaper cutting of an obituary reporting on the death of a senior administrator. There was also a writing contest with prizes of books offered for the best essays. It appears that these were the only two issues produced under by the College for Working Women.

Another college magazine appeared in print in December 1911 entitled, A Reminiscence of the College for Working Women. The ‘Introduction’ makes clear that it was the first issue and was instigated by the College Chairman so as to compare favourably with other institutions who produced their own journals. While this magazine was getting under way, the two earlier issues were discovered, and a decision was made to reproduce them in print as one (truncated and re-organised) issue. The earlier manuscript magazines were presented as a ‘prelude to the new journal.

The first official issue of this new magazine was called Our Magazine and appeared in print in January 1913 costing one penny. This issue contains a combination of reports notices of college events and activites, anecdotes and accounts of past events, and only one original story. It is predominantly devoted to correspondence, with 21 extracts from students’ letters.

Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine

Working Women’s College (later became the Frances Martin College for Women) (London)

Date of Existence

1874-1957 (in 1957, lease expired at 7 Fitzroy Street; moved to working men’s college building in Crowndale Road, NW1)

Date of Magazine

The College News, A Quarterly Magazine: Mar. 1886; Nov. 1886; A Reminiscence of the College for Working Women: Dec. 1911; Our Magazine: Jan. 1913

(Note: another magazine was produced in 1927-28, Chronicle of the Frances Martin College)

Number of Issues

4 (total number produced by the college under different titles during the period under study)

Manuscript/Published Magazine

Manuscript, later issues in print

Contents and Contributions

Address; Art/Illustrations (original); Articles (non-fiction); Class reports; Clippings (printed material); Correspondence column; Editorials;  Essays; Extracts of students’ letters; Lists of forthcoming events; Lists of Prizes and Certificates; Newspaper clippings; Notices; Notices (printed); Poem (republished material); Preface; Puzzles; Reports; Report (Debating Society); Tables of Class Attendance; Tables of Contents; Tables of Students’ Occupations; Title pages

Repository

London Metropolitan Archives

Reference

A/FMC/CM/001; A/FMC/CM/004;
A/FMC/CM/005; A/FMC/CM/006a;
(1927-28 issue: A/FMC/CM/007a)

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.