This club was based in Govan, an area south of the River Clyde and southwest of the city centre. (For more information about this area, see Gerald Blaikie’s article, ‘Govan, Glasgow. Architecture & History‘ on the ScotCities website.)

In 1913, there were 50 members, which was the maximum limit set by this club, and the Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory for this year reports that there were even several men on the waiting list. The following year, the limit was raised to 60 as the club was apparently a popular one.

The group met at 7.30pm in the Red Lamp on Maxwell Street (presumably this was a pub or restaurant) on the second Friday between September and March as well as in June.

According to the 1913 ‘Club Directory’, the group’s regulations set out:

‘That the members of the Club shall consist of men who honour and revere the memory of Burns; that the membership shall not exceed fifty in number, and each candidate for membership must be a Freemason; and to promote social and friendly intercouse amongst its members.’

(‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1913’, in Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XXII (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1913), p. 208)

Date of Existence

1895-? Federated 18 May 1911

Source of Information

1. (Mentioned in minutes of the Glasgow and District Burns Club: Minute entry, 27 March 1913, Glasgow and District Burns Club, Minutes, 12 September 1912-30 April 1919, p. 15 (MLSC, 891709));

2. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1912’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XXI (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1912), p. 185;

3. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1913’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XXII (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1913), p. 208;

4. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1914’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XXIII (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1914), p. 227

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections (MLSC) (Minutes, and Annual Burns Chronicle)

National Library of Scotland (NLS) (Annual  Burns Chronicle)

Reference Number

(See Source of Information, and below for Annual Burns Chronicle)

BNS19BUR (MLSC) (Annual Burns Chronicle)

General Reading Room (stored offsite), Y.233, available no. 1-34 25th Jan. 1892-Jan. 1925 (NLS) (Annual Burns Chronicle)

Additional Notes

See also Glasgow and District Burns Club.

‘BC‘ refers to the Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory, which was published yearly since 1892. Copies are available at the Mitchell Library Special Collections and the National Library of Scotland. Many of these have been digitised and are available through the Robert Burns World Federation website: http://www.rbwf.org.uk/digitised-chronicles/.

This list of Burns chronicles as sources of information gives the first year the club was included in the chronicle, and thereafter only for the years where the information is different from the previous year’s listing. In keeping with the scope of this study (1800-1914), only the chronicles published between 1892 and 1914 are included.

Members of this society were most likely part of the congregation of the Renfield Street United Presbyterian Church. The church, completed in 1848, was located on the corner of Renfield Street and Sauchiehall Street. (For more information about this church, see ‘Renfield Street UP Church‘ on The Glasgow Story website).

The information on this society comes from a published history of the church on the occasion of its jubilee. The Reverend James Taylor relates the history of the young men’s literary group. According to Taylor, in 1853, a young men’s association was started within the church. The group’s object was to instruct its members on becoming useful members of the church and more broadly in the larger community. At the meetings, essays were read and debates were held. The group changed names a few times, and it seems that it was not continuously running.

In the late 1880s or early 1890s, the group became the Literary Association and opened its membership to women. Taylor cites the last annual report for this later group as dating from 1894, which suggests that by 1898 at least, the group was no longer running.

Date of Existence

1853-?

Source of Information

Our Fifty Years; Being the Jubilee Book of Renfield Street United Presbyterian Church, Glasgow, ed. by Andrew F. Forrest, 2nd edn (Glasgow: Printed by Samuel A. C. Todd, 1898)

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections

Reference Number

Mitchell (GC) 285.241443 REN 189592

Additional Notes

–

Members of this debating society were most likely members of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, which was located on Great Western Road, in the West End of Glasgow. (For a history of this church, see ‘History‘, on the St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow webpage.)

The meetings of the Young Men’s Friendly Society were held at Burnbank Hall (St. Mary’s Church hall) on 236 Great Western Road. The hall itself was was open every evening.

Information on this society is given in a printed brochure for the inaugural meeting of the St. Mary’s Branch of the Young Men’s Friendly Society, which was held at 7.30pm on Saturday, October 13th [1894?], in Burnbank Hall. Although this group was for young men, young women were also encouraged to attend this opening meeting.

In the brochure, the society announced its plans, or ‘Work Arranged For The Winter Season’, in the form of several types of classes and societies that were organised for its members. Amongst them were a Musical Society, and ‘Improvement Classes, &.’, which included classes in shorthand, English literature, carving, ambulance (presumably a first-aid class), and fencing.

On the next page is a syllabus for the group’s debating society . The syllabus for this winter session is a good example of the typical variety of essays read and debates that were held by many literary societies in during this period. According to the schedule, the members of this society would have heard a lecture on ‘The Brain and its Functions’, given by Dr. C. O. Hawthorne (18 October), a debate ‘That Parliamentary Suffrage should be granted to Women’ (8 November), a lecture on ‘Tennyson as an Onomatopeist, Word Painter, and Lyric Poet’ (15 November), a debate ‘That the House of Lords should be abolished’ (6 December), a lecture on Jane Austen (13 December), and a debate ‘That Single Life is preferable to Married Life’ (27 December). In addition to the lectures and debates, a smoking concert (i.e. usually a musical performance at which the audience–in this case restricted to men–was allowed to smoke) and a soiree were planned.

Date of Existence

13 October [1894?]-?

Source of Information

(Syllabus for Debating Society, October-December (1894?), includes notice of Musical Society, and list of ‘Improvement Classes &c’ including English Literature, and ‘Rules for Conduct of Lectures and Debates’)

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections (MLSC)

Reference Number

Glasgow Scrapbooks, No. 23 (p. 261)

Additional Notes

See also Scotch Girls Friendly Society.

The earliest evidence we have to date for the Glasgow branch of the Young Women’s Christian Association comes from the 1870s, about twenty years after the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) was formed in London, and about thirty years after the Young Men’s Christian Association was formed (YMCA). (For a history of the Young Women’s Christian Association, see ‘Admin History’ of the Young Women’s Christian Association on the Warwick Modern Records Centre online catalogue. For a history of the Young Men’s Christian Association, see ‘History and Heritage’, on the YMCA website.)

The 1877-1878 Glasgow Post Office Directory provides the following listing for this group:

‘YOUNG WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. Institute and Boarding House, 59 Union Street […] The object of this Association is to promote the religious, moral, and temporal welfare of young women. Refreshment and reading rooms are open daily from 10 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. Educational classes and religious meetings are held. Lodgings are provided at a moderate charge’.

(‘Young Women’s Christian Association’, ‘Religious and Moral Institutions’, Post Office Glasgow Directory for 1877-1878… (Glasgow: William Mackenzie, 1877), p. 103)

At the start of the twentieth century, the association’s facilities, meetings and classes aimed to assist an increasing number of ‘young women engaged in business’ during this period:

‘GLASGOW YOUNG WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION. Institute, 80 Bath Street. […] The object of the Association is to promote the religious, moral and temporal welfare of young women. Refreshment and reading rooms are open daily. Educational classes and religious meetings are held. There is a large Boarding House for young women engaged in business, a Registry for female servants, and a Temporary Home for servants at the Institute, 80 Bath Street. Similar meetings, classes, &c., are provided at the Bridgeton Institute of the Association, 32 Muslin St., Bridgeton.’

(‘Glasgow Young Women’s Christian Association’, ‘Religious and Moral Institutions’, Post Office Glasgow Directory for 1902-1903… (Glasgow: Aird & Coghill, 1902), p. 151)

Date of Existence

1877?-?

Source of Information

1. Records of the YWCA, 1855-1995, 116 boxes (92 [MSS.243], 14 [986], includes branch records) (WMRC, MSS243; 986) (see records from Glasgow branch, mostly from 1920s);

2. ‘Young Women’s Christian Association’, ‘Religious and Moral Institutions’, Post Office Glasgow Directory for 1877-1878… (Glasgow: William Mackenzie, 1877), p. 103;

3. ‘Glasgow Young Women’s Christian Association’, ‘Religious and Moral Institutions’, Post Office Glasgow Directory for 1902-1903… (Glasgow: Aird & Coghill, 1902), p. 151

Repository

Mitchell Library (Glasgow Post Office directories)

National Library of Scotland (Glasgow Post Office directories)

Warwick Modern Records Centre (WMRC)

Reference Number

(See Source of Information)

Additional Notes

See also Glasgow Young Men’s Christian Association.

The Glasgow Post Office directories are available at the Mitchell Library and the National Library of Scotland. Digitised copies are available through the NLS website: https://www.nls.uk/family-history/directories/post-office/index.cfm?place=Glasgow

Members of this club were most likely part of the congregation of the Renwick Free Church. To go back a bit to the early nineteenth century, the congregation was known as the Southern Reformed Presbyterian Congregation and their church was located on Salisbury Street, located in the south side of the city in the Laurieston area. (For more information on this area, see ‘Gorbals, Glasgow. Laurieston Guide‘ on the ScotCities website). The City Union Railway bought the building in 1868 and a new church was built on nearby Cumberland Street. Eight years later they joined the Free Church. (For more information on the history of this congregation, see ‘Glasgow — Renwick‘ on the Ecclegen website.)

The Glasgow Foundry Boys Religious Society was instituted in 1865, twenty-three years before the founding of the Youths Reading and Recreation Club was started under its auspices.

The Glasgow Post Office directories for the early years of the twentieth century show that the Glasgow Foundry Boys Religious Society was a huge organisation whose quickly growing membership only began to decline at the start First World War. In 1902, it had on its rolls ‘16,861 lads and girls, and 1848 voluntary workers’ (‘Glasgow Foundry Boys’ Religious Society’, ‘Religious and Moral Institutions’, Post Office Glasgow Directory for 1902-1903… (Glasgow: Aird & Coghill, 1902), p. 151). The number of young men and women members rose to almost 18,000 in 1906, but by 1914, it had ‘14,652 lads and girls, and 1561 voluntary workers […] [with] 83 branches in the city and suburbs’ (‘Glasgow Foundry Boys Religious Society’, ‘Institutions’, Post Office Glasgow Directory for 1914-1915… (Glasgow: Aird & Coghill, 1914), p. 1793).

The Youths Reading and Recreation Club of the Glasgow Foundry Boys Religious Society was founded in 1888 in conjunction with the Renwick Sabbath School, and was aimed at the senior boys in the school. According to the 1888 Annual Report, it had been so successful that it was made into a separate group.

According to the 1897 Annual Report, the club was still going strong in that year. It was reported that in the winter, the boys met in the Large Hall at the church for reading and recreational activities. In the summer, the club morphed into a swimming club that met at on Friday nights at the South-Side Baths.

Date of Existence

1888-(intermittently) 1897 (at least)

Source of Information

Renwick Church of Scotland, Glasgow Foundry Boy’s Religious Society, South Cumberland Street Branch, later called Renwick Halls branch, minutes 1887-98 (Minute entry, 17 December 1888, Youths Club, ‘Annual Report for 1888’; ‘Annual Report’, G.F.B.R.S. — Renwick Halls Branch, April 1897)

Repository

Glasgow City Archives

Reference Number

TD 396/37

Additional Notes

See also Glasgow Foundry Boys’ Religious Society, Wellington Palace Branch, Renwick Free Church Literary Association, and Renwick Free Church Branch Glasgow United Young Men’s Christian Association.