Overview
Sandyford is an area located just to the west of Charing Cross. The evidence for this group comes solely from the manuscript magazine that its members founded. At the very end of the 1883 issue is transcribed an ‘Extract from Report submitted to the Fifth Annual meeting of Sandyford Church Literary Association, 7th April 1884′.
This extract states that the association’s meetings had recently changed from fortnightly to weekly gatherings. According to the report, the increase in the frequency of the meetings resulted in an increase in the number of members, along with an increase in the number of members attendant at those meetings. In addition to seven lectures, five debates were held which included two joint-debates with Free St. George’s Literary Association and the Park Literary Institute (see ‘Additional Notes’ below). The group also held their annual dinner on March 10th 1884 at the Grand Hotel.
It was in the 1883-1884 session that the society’s manuscript magazine was founded (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).
In the ‘Preface’ to William Girvan Hendrie’s poetry anthology entitled, Poems (1899), it states that Hendrie was a member of this literary society between 1863 and 1864. With pride, it is noted that ‘not a few of the members [of this society] have become well-known men in the business or professional world’ (p. 3). During his time as a member, Hendrie wrote his first poems.
Hendrie worked in a counting-house in Glasgow and wrote poetry in his spare time, which remained unpublished in his lifetime. However, he did publish a series of articles in the Glasgow Herald on the then current state of Ireland. The poems in this anthology were reportedly not written with a view to publication, but were published as a token of the many years of labour he undertook in creating them (p. 5). His first poems were composed whilst he was a member of the Sandyford society.
Date of Existence
1879-?
Source of Information
1. Sandyford Literary Association MS Magazine (1883) (MLSC)
2. W. G. H. [William Girvan Hendrie], Poems (Paisley, and London: Alexander Gardner, 1899) (IT)
Repository
1. Mitchell Library Special Collections (MLSC)
2. Cultural, Creative and Heritage Service, North Ayrshire Council, Irvine Townhouse (IT)
Reference Number
1. 642424 (MLSC)
2. Local & Family History Collection, DE82 (IT)
Additional Notes
See also Free St. George’s Literary Association, The Park Literary Institution, and the Wellington United Presbyterian Church Literary Association, with whom this society held at least one joint meeting.
See also entry for Sandyford Literary Association MS Magazine on our sister website, Literary Bonds.