Bridgeton Burns Club

Overview Bridgeton is an area to the east of Glasgow’s city centre. (For more information about this area, see Gordon Adams’s chapter, [Bridgeton & Dalmarnock], ‘Historical Background‘, on the East Glasgow History website.) The Bridgeton Burns Club’s website gives the group’s earliest Read More …

Glasgow Addisonian Literary Society

Overview Alexander Smith (1829-1867) was a well-known working-class Scottish poet, and was one of the founding members and Secretary of this society. (For more information on Smith, see, for example, ‘Alexander Smith (1829 – 1867)‘ on the Scottish Poetry Library Read More …

Glasgow Haggis Club

Overview This Burns club was of a (purposefully) moderate size, limiting its membership to 40 in 1894, and expanding this only slightly to 50 in 1897. According to the 1904 Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory, it was a ‘social’ Read More …

Glasgow United Young Men’s Christian Association

Overview The Glasgow Young Men’s Society for Religious Improvement was founded in 1824. In 1877, it amalgamated with the Glasgow Young Men’s Christian Association (aka the G.Y.M.C.A., instituted in 1841, but this date is debatable) to become the Glasgow United Read More …

Glasgow University Dialectic Society

Overview The online catalogue of the University of Glasgow Archives Services, Archives Hub, offers a summary of this society and its activities: ‘Administrative / Biographical History Glasgow University Dialectic Society was instituted in 1861 at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, Read More …

Glasgow Young Men’s Christian Association

Overview The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) was formed in London in 1841. (For a history of this association, see ‘History and Heritage’, on the YMCA website.) There is a discrepancy in the records as to the start date of the Glasgow Read More …

Glasgow Young Men’s Society for Religious Improvement

Overview This society was instituted in 1824. In 1877, it amalgamated with the Glasgow Young Men’s Christian Association (aka G.Y.M.C.A., instituted in 1841, although this date is debatable) to become the Glasgow United Young Men’s Christian Association in 1877. In Read More …

Mauchline Society (aka Glasgow-Mauchline Society)

Overview Mauchline is a town in East Ayrshire. Robert Burns lived there for a time on Mossgiel Farm. This group is a type of nineteenth-century county association. In the stricter sense, county associations were groups whose members (or whose parents) were Read More …

Partick Burns Club

Overview Partick is an area in the West End of Glasgow. (For more information on this area, see the entry for ‘Partick, Glasgow. Origins & History‘ on the ScotCities website). This was a fairly large Burns club, having 213 members in 1896. Membership Read More …

Royalty Burns Club

Overview According to the club’s website, this Burns club was formed by a few Glasgow Publicans in 1882. Various issues of the Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory published at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provide more details. Read More …

Sandyford Burns Club

Overview Sandyford is an area located just to the west of Charing Cross. The Glasgow and District Burns Association website gives a brief history of the founding of this club: ‘The clubs’ [sic] motto is taken from the poem “Contented Wi Read More …

Springburn Burns Club

Overview Springburn is a district in the north of the city. (For more information on this area, see Gilbert T. Bell’s, ‘Second City of The Empire: 1830s to 1914. Neighbourhoods: Springburn‘ on The Glasgow Story website.) There is very little currently Read More …