The Literary Clubs and Societies of Glasgow During the Long Nineteenth Century: a City’S History of Reading Through Its Communal Reading Practices and Productions
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1 The Literary Clubs and Societies of Glasgow during the Long Nineteenth Century: A City’s History of Reading through its Communal Reading Practices and Productions Lauren Jenifer Weiss University of Stirling Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2017 2 Abstract This thesis uses the minute books and manuscript magazines of Glasgow’s literary societies as evidence for my argument that the history of mutual improvement groups—including literary societies—needs to be re-written as a unique movement of ‘improvement’ during the long nineteenth century. In foregrounding the surviving records, I examine what it meant to be literary to society members in Glasgow during this period. I discuss what their motivations were for becoming so, and reflect on the impact that gender, occupation and social class had on these. I demonstrate that these groups contributed to the education and literacy of people living in the city and to a larger culture of ‘improvement’. Further, I argue that there is a case to be made for a particularly Scottish way of consuming texts in the long nineteenth century. In Glasgow, there were at least 193 literary societies during this period, which I divide into four phases of development. I provide an in-depth examination of two societies which serve as case studies. In addition, I give an overview and comparison of the 652 issues of Scottish and English society magazines I discovered in the context of a larger, ‘improving’ culture. I offer possible reasons why so many literary societies produced manuscript magazines, and show that this phenomenon was not unique to them. These magazines fostered a communal identity formed around a combination of religion, class, gender and local identity. I determine that societies in England produced similar types of magazines to those in Scotland possibly based upon the Scottish precedent. These materials substantially contribute to the evidence for nineteenth-century mutual improvement societies and their magazines, and for working- and lower-middle class Scottish readers and writers during the long nineteenth century, social groups that are under-represented in the history of reading and in Victorian studies. 3 Acknowledgements First, I would like to extend my gratitude to the University of Stirling for providing me with the funding to undertake this doctoral project. In addition, I wish to thank the Faculty of Arts and Humanities for awarding me further funding for my archival research trips to Manchester and Toronto. Throughout my three years at Stirling, I was supported in countless ways by its unfailingly encouraging faculty and staff members, as well as its close-knit postgraduate community. A heartfelt thank you to you all. In addition, the University of Strathclyde also helped to fund my final year of study, without which I would have struggled, so thank you very much. To my supervisors, Dr Katie Halsey (Stirling) and Prof Kirstie Blair (Strathclyde), I wish to extend my deepest thanks for all your advice, support, and particularly your encouragement to be ambitious. This project would not have been possible without the assistance and information provided by many librarians and archivists not only in Glasgow, where most of this work was conducted, but also across Scotland, England, and as far afield as Toronto, Canada. I wish to extend a huge thank you to the staff at the following libraries, archives, and special collections: Aberdeen City Library, Central Library; Archives of Ontario; Argyll and Bute Council Archives; Caithness Archives Centre; Calderdale, West Yorkshire Archive Service; Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, Cheshire Record Office; City of Westminster Archives Centre; Dick Institute; Dumfries and Galloway Regional Council Library Service, Ewart Library; Dundee District Central Library, The Wellgate; Edinburgh Central Library; Elgin Public Library; Glasgow City Archives; Hackney Archives Department; Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies; Lancashire Archives; London Metropolitan Archives; Manchester Archives and Local Studies; Mitchell Library; Mitchell Library Special Collections; National Library of Scotland; National Records of Scotland; North Lanarkshire Archives; Oldham Local Studies & Archives; Orkney Library, and Archivists of the Orkney Room, Kirkwall; Paisley Heritage Centre; Royal College of Physicians, Glasgow; Scottish Borders Archive and Local History Centre; Sheffield Archives; Shetland Archives; Shropshire Archives; Toronto Reference Library; Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives; Tyne & Wear Archives; United Church of Canada Archives; University of Glasgow Archives Services; University of Glasgow Library; University of Glasgow Special Collections; University of Strathclyde Archives; University of Strathclyde Special Collections; and Warwick Modern 4 Records Centre. Many thanks to all of the professionals based in these archives, whose expertise I have benefitted from in innumerable ways. In addition to the above-mentioned support by Stirling, the funding to travel to and visit many of these archives – sometimes for a period of weeks – was generously provided by the Curran Fellowship and the Santander Award. I wish to thank the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) and Santander for the invaluable and unique opportunities they provided as a result, which allowed me to extend my research to the wider, national context. There are many individuals I have had the good fortune to meet as a result of my research, for whom I especially wish to thank. They include: Blair Bruce (Archives Assistant, Shetland Archives); Dr John C. Crawford (Independent Libraries Professional); Abigail Droge (PhD Candidate, Stanford University); Prof David Finkelstein (University of Edinburgh); Ruth Gifford and Ruthven Gifford (Honorary Secretary, Glasgow Orkney and Shetland Association); Patricia Grant (Library Collections Manager, Special Collections, Mitchell Library); Donald Macaskill (Archivist, ‘Ours’ Club); David MacKie (Senior Archivist, Orkney Library & Archive); Dr Emma Macleod (University of Stirling); Prof Heather Murray (University of Toronto); Dr Irene O’Brien (Senior Archivist, Glasgow City Archives); Victoria Peters (Archivist, University of Strathclyde); Bob Robertson (President, Glasgow Orkney and Shetland Association); Jim Robertson (Secretary, ‘Ours’ Club); Dr Michael Sanders (University of Manchester); Dr Matthew Sangster (University of Glasgow); Brian Smith (Archivist, Shetland Archives); Susan Taylor (Special Collections Librarian, Mitchell Library); and Robin Urquhart (Head of Digitisation, National Records of Scotland). I particularly wish to thank my external examiner, Prof Simon Eliot, and internal examiner, Prof Claire Squires, for their careful scrutiny of and comments on my thesis, along with their invaluable advice and suggestions for taking my work forward – thank you both. In addition, a big thank you to Prof Christine Ferguson for acting as the Independent Chair of my examining committee. Without a doubt, I have missed several others, but hope that my poor memory at this very final stage of my thesis does not detract from my wish to extend my thanks to all the academics, scholars and library professionals I have had the privilege of meeting and working with, and acknowledge the debt I owe them for their kind assistance. Finally, it remains to thank my family for all their support over the years from across the pond. Most especially, I want to thank my husband, Stephan – who never questioned ‘How exciting this all is!’ – for his constant support, without which this project would not have come to fruition. 5 Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………..………………2 Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………3 Table of Contents………………………………………………………..…………………….5 List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………6 Chapter 1: Introduction………………………………………………………………………..8 Chapter 2: Quantitative Data: Glasgow Literary Clubs and Societies, 1800-1914…………..33 Chapter 3: Glasgow Burns Clubs, 1844-1914………………………………………………..79 Chapter 4: Case Study 1: ‘The Manuscript Magazines of the Wellpark Free Church Young Men’s Literary Society…………………………………………………....101 Chapter 5: Case Study 2: The Glasgow Orkney and Shetland Literary and Scientific Association…………………………………………………………….118 Chapter 6: Literary Society Magazines: Glasgow, and Other Scottish and English Productions....…...………………………………………………………171 Chapter 7: Conclusion………………………………………………………………………202 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………...208 Appendix I…………………………………………………………………………………..248 Appendix II………………………………………………………………………………….258 Appendix III………………………………………………………………………………...263 Appendix IV…………………………………………………………………………………265 Appendix V…………………………………………………………………………………..268 6 List of Figures Chapter 2 Figure 2.1 ‘Areas Added to the City at Various Dates’…………………………………. 32 Figure 2.2 Glasgow Literary Clubs and Societies, 1800-1914, by Founding Year or Earliest Evidence…………………………………………………………...38 Figure 2.3 Literary Clubs and Societies in Glasgow, 1800-1914, by Decade Using Founding Year or Earliest Evidence………………………………………….41 Chapter 3 Figure 3.1 Growth of Burns Clubs Founded in Glasgow by Decade, 1844-1914……….79 Figure 3.2 Burns Clubs Founded by Individual Year……………………………………80 Figure 3.3 Cumulative Total of Burns Clubs and All Other Literary Clubs and Societies in Glasgow, 1844-1914………………………………………..80 Figure 3.4 Relative Size of Burns Club Membership in Glasgow, 1844-1914, by Total Number of Burns Clubs…………………………………………….83 Figure 3.5 Frequency