Overview The Albany Burns Club was founded by a few members of the soon-to-be-defunct Albany Bowling Club in order ‘[t]o keep up the old and valued friendships that were made on its turn’ (‘Club Notes’, ‘ALBANY BURNS CLUB’, in Annual Read More …
Type of Society/Group: Social Club
Anderston Social Club (not the same as the Anderston Club)
Overview Anderston is an area just over a mile to the west of Glasgow’s city centre. (For more information about this area, see Michael Moss’s article, ‘Industrial Revolution: 1770s to 1830s. Neighbourhoods. Anderston‘ on The Glasgow Story website). According to John M’Dowall, Read More …
Auld Clinkum Burns Club
Overview There is very little currently known about this club. According to the Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory, members met on the first Saturday of each month at an establishment on St. Vincent Street (to the west of the Read More …
Bank Burns Club
Overview This Burns club met weekly on Saturday evenings at Mrs. M’Arthur’s in 1883, later the Club Rooms at M’Culloch’s in 1892, both of which are listed as 109 Argyle Street, before moving in 1896 (at least) to Whyte and Read More …
Barns O’ Clyde Burns Club, Clydebank
Overview Clydebank is located to the west of Glasgow and is situated on the north of the River Clyde. The Visit Scotland website offers a brief history of the area: ‘Clydebank is the historic heartland of the Scottish shipbuilding industry […] During Read More …
Caledonia Burns Club (not same as Caledonian Burns Club)
Overview The ‘Club Notes’ in the Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory for 1901 includes this club’s Constitution, which gives its objects: ‘The objects of the Club shall be to foster an intimate acquaintance with the works of Burns, and Read More …
Caledonian Burns Club (aka Glasgow Caledonian Burns Club) (not same as Caledonia Burns Club, Glasgow)
Overview There is little currently known about this club. According to the Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory, in 1898, the group met every other Thursday. From 1899 until 1912 (at least), this was changed to every other Tuesday from Read More …
Clarinda Burns Club (currently unclear if this is Glasgow Clarinda Club)
Overview This club was named after ‘Clarinda’, the name adopted by Agnes McLehose (or MacLehose, M’Lehose, Meklehose), whose affair with Robert Burns (‘Sylvander’) is the subject of ‘Ae fond kiss’ (1791). The Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory for the Read More …
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 Read More …
Dennistoun Jolly Beggars Burns Club
Overview Dennistoun is an area located to the east of Glasgow’s city centre. (For more information about this area, see Ian R. Mitchell’s article, ‘Dennistoun: No Mean Streets‘ on the Glasgow West End website). There is not much currently known about this Read More …
Glasgow and District Burns Club (aka Glasgow and District Burns Club Association, aka Glasgow and District Association of Burns Clubs and Kindred Societies) (currently unclear if this is same as Glasgow And West of Scotland Burns Club Association)
Overview This club was made up of several local and regional Burns clubs: in 1908, one year after its founding, there were 23 clubs, and the group grew to include 40 clubs by 1914. It met at various venues across Read More …
Glasgow and West of Scotland Catholic Literary Association
Overview There is little information currently known about this club. The details that we have come from the Glasgow Post Office directory, which lists the society’s patron, Office Bearers, object and subscription fee: ‘[…] Patron, His Grace Archbishop Eyre, LL.D. Read More …
Glasgow Arbroath Association
Overview Arbroath is a town in Angus, and is northeast of Dundee. (For more information on the town, see ‘Arbroath‘ on Undiscovered Scotland website.) This society is a type of nineteenth-century county association. In the stricter sense, county associations were groups Read More …
Glasgow Carlton Burns Club
Overview Carlton is a district in the east end of Glasgow. (For more information about this area, see Gordon Adams’s article, ‘Carlton’ on the East Glasgow History website.) This club met on the first Tuesday of the month between October and April. Read More …
Glasgow Central Burns Club (aka Glasgow Central Burns Club and Literary Society, Ltd.)
Overview This club’s object was ‘[t]o promote the study of Burns’s works and other literary and social subjects’. (‘No. 145. -GLASGOW Central Burns Club and Literary Society, Ltd.’, ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Read More …
Glasgow Cowal Society, Literary Department
Overview The name for this society refers to Cowal, a peninsula in Argyll and Bute in the Scottish Highlands, thus its members were almost certainly from the Highlands. This group is a type of nineteenth-century county association. In the stricter sense, Read More …
Glasgow Dundee Association for Literary and Social Purposes
Overview This society is a type of nineteenth-century county association. In the stricter sense, county associations were groups whose members (or whose parents) were former residents of counties across Scotland who had moved to Glasgow. This type of group incorporated elements 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 Hutchesontown Burns Club
Overview This Burns club was based in Hutchesontown, located to the south of the River Clyde and southeast of the city centre. Members met at 572 Rutherglen Road (premises of R. Young, spirit merchant) on the first Friday of the Read More …
Glasgow Jewish Literary and Social Society (currently unknown if this is same as Glasgow Jewish Young Men’s Institute)
Overview The information that we currently have for the Glasgow Jewish Literary and Social Society comes from a 1904 catalogue of the society’s library. Use of the library was restricted to society members, but was free of charge. The library Read More …
Glasgow Literary Club
Overview This literary club was in fact an institution, in the sense of being a building where club members met for in/formal literary and social events and activities. The club was founded in 1911 and located at 266 St Vincent Read More …
Glasgow Mossgiel Burns Club
Overview Mossgiel Farm in Ayrshire was the home of Robert Burns. (For more information about the farm, see ‘Mossgiel‘ on The Burns Encyclopedia website.) This Burns club had a modestly-sized membership of 50 in the late nineteenth century. Meetings were held Read More …
Glasgow Philological and Literary Club (aka This Club of Ours, or ‘Ours’ Club)
Overview According to club records, this group was founded in 1871 by William Sloan, and its ten original members were dominies (Scots for schoolmasters). Meetings took place on Friday nights on North Street (in the Anderston area, to the west Read More …
Glasgow Primrose Burns Club
Overview In 1910 (the earliest year for which we have any details on this club), members met in the Arcade Café (possibly Sloan’s Arcade Café, 109 Argyle Street), before meeting in the Alexandra Hotel (148 Bath Street, in the city Read More …
Gorbals Burns Club
Overview This club took its name from the Gorbals, an area in the south side of Glasgow where, presumably, the members were based. (For more information about the area, see ‘Gorbals , Glasgow. Origins & History‘ on the ScotCities website.) The group met at Read More …
Kinning Park Burns Club
Overview Kinning Park is an area in the south side of Glasgow. (For more information on this area, see W. Hamish Fraser’s article, ‘Neighbourhoods. Kinning Park‘ on The Glasgow Story website). In 1908, the Kinning Park Burns Club met at 8pm on the Read More …
Macaulay Literary Club
Overview It is currently unknown if this club was named for Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), possibly as a tribute to him and his influential writing on British history, his death occurring only five years prior to the club’s formation. To Read More …
National Burns Club, Ltd., Glasgow
Overview This group had its own Club Rooms, which were located at 93 Douglas Street (just off St. Vincent Street, and to the west of the city centre). Later, it had its own library. The ‘Club Notes’ of the 1905 Read More …
Original Union Club
Overview There is very little information currently known about this club. The information that we have comes from a newspaper clipping from the ‘Times’, possibly the Glasgow Evening Times. This newspaper article was placed in a scrapbook complied by William Young 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 …
Partick Western Burns Club (not same as Partick Burns Club, nor the Western 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). The evidence for this group comes from issues of the Annual Burns Chronicle 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 …
Scottish Burns Club
Overview According to the 1915 Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory, this Burns club had 101 members and nine life members on its roll in 1914. This is the only evidence we have in regards to the size of the Read More …
Tam O’ Shanter Club (aka the Tam O’ Shanter Burns Club)
Overview According to the 1882 Glasgow Post Office directory, the object (i.e. purpose for meeting) of this Burns club was ‘the annual celebration of the birth-day of Robert Burns; occasional reunions for the cultivation of social and intellectual intercourse amongst Read More …