Overview
Tollcross is an area in Glasgow’s east end, approximately three miles from the city centre. (For more information about this area, see Gordon Adams’s A History of Tollcross & Dalbeth, a digitised copy of which is available on the East Glasgow History website.)
In 1910, this club’s object (i.e. the purpose for meeting) was for ‘Monthly meetings; tattie and herrin’, Burns anniversary, and beef and greens dinners; also schools competition’ (‘Club Notes’, in Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XIX (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1910), p. 191). In the following year’s directory, the object was simply listed as being to ‘Promote the study of Burns’s works’.
As the 1910 directory rightly states, over the years this club’s ‘Place and time of meeting, varied [sic]’. In 1911, it met on the second Thursday of the month at 8pm at Hilliar’s Rooms on Main Street, Tollcross. By 1914 (at least), the club was meeting on the first Tuesday of the month at 8pm at the Tollcross Bowlhouse.
Date of Existence
1908-? Federated 13th February 1909 (Note: the 1912 Annual Burns Chronicle gives 5 November 1908 as date of federation)
Source of Information
1. (Newspaper clipping, unattributed, annotated:) ’31/01/11′, in Glasgow and District Burns Club, Minutes, 8 November 1907 – 5 September 1912, p. 192 (MLSC, 891709));
2. ‘Club Notes’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XIX (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1910), p. 191;
3. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1911’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XX (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1911), p. 178
Repository
Mitchell Library Special Collections (MLSC)
National Library of Scotland (NLS)
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 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.