Co-operative Burns Club

Overview

This Burns club met on the first Saturday of each month between October and May at 8pm. Its meetings were held at various local restaurants (e.g. in Room No. 10 at M’Culloch’s Restaurant, Croy place, 9 Maxwell Street, at 109 Argyle Street, and later at Sloan’s Arcade Cafe, Argyle Street). At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, it had about 80 members.

The club was keen to emphasise the literary element of its meetings. For example, in addition to its musical evenings, the club advertised in the ‘Special Features’ of the Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory that ‘[a]t each meeting a paper on Burns or other literary subject is given by competent lecturers’.

(‘No. 83–GLASGOW Co-operative Burns Club’, ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1907’, in Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XVI (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1907), p. 163)

Date of Existence

1896-? Federated 1896

Source of Information

1. (Mentioned in minutes of Glasgow and District Burns Club: Minute entry, 8 November 1907, Minutes, Glasgow and District Burns Club, 8 November 1907-5 September 1912, p. 1 (MLSC, 891709));

2. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1897’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. VI (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1897), p. 156;

3. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1899’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. VIII (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January, 1899), pp. 160-61;

4. ‘Club Notes’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. X (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1901), pp. 106-07;

5. ‘Club Notes’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XI (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1902), p. 121;

6. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1904’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XIII (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1904), p. 143;

7. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1905’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XIV (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1905), p. 153;

8. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1906’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XV (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1906), p. 152;

9. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1907’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XVI (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1907), p. 163;

10. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1908’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XVII (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1908), p. 137;

11. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1909’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XVIII (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1909), p. 169

Repository

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

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

Reference Number

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. Hard copies are available at the Mitchell Library Special Collections and the National Library of Scotland. Many of them 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.