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. The group had a membership of moderate size at the end of the nineteenth century, with between 60 and 65 members on the rolls between 1894 and 1897. By 1900, the group had grown to more than double its size (n. 170).

Members met on the last Thursday of the month from October until the end of March. The venue for the meetings would change over the years: in 1882, the club met at a pub in Hope Street (the name is currently unknown); in 1893 at the Alexandra Hotel on Bath Street; in 1895 at Thomas White & Smith’s (according to the Glasgow Post Office directory for 1895, they were ‘restauranteurs, wine merchants, bakers and purveyors’) at 7 Gordon Street; and in 1912 at the Bank Restaurant on Queen Street.

Date of Existence

1882 (the 1893 Annual Burns Chronicle gives 1883 as the date of institution)-present; Federated 1886

Source of Information

1. Memorial Catalogue of the Burns Exhibition. Held in the Galleries of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, 175 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, From 15th July till 31st October, 1896 (Glasgow: William Hodge & Company and T. & R. Annan & Sons, 1898), p. xv (MLSC, Mitchell (AL) 14A MEM 472108);

2. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1894’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. III (Kilmarnock: D. Brown & Co., February 1894), p. 192;

3. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1895’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. IV (Kilmarnock: D. Brown & Co., January 1895), p. 173;

4. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1896’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. V (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1896), p. 129;

5. ‘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. 149;

6. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1900’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. IX (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1900), p. 135;

7. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1902’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XI (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1902), p. 134;

8. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1903’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XII (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1903), p. 142;

9. ‘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. 158;

10. Royalty Burns Club Homepage <http://royaltyburnsclub.com/> [accessed 23/09/15]

Repository

Mitchell Library Special Collections (MLSC) (Memorial Catalogue, 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

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.