Overview
A summary of the history of the Original Union Club is available on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds (see ‘Additional Notes’ below).
According to a newspaper clipping, this group was more of a social drinking club whose members met in a local pub to raise toasts and read their original poems. If the poems were thought to be particularly good, they were recorded in the club’s scrapbook kept for the purpose. To date, no evidence has been found for the scrapbook in the local archives.
This club was one of many groups in Scotland and England (and beyond) during the long nineteenth century where we know that a scrapbook or magazine was produced from evidence provided by the society’s records (or other documentation), but it does not appear to have survived.
It is debatable whether or not these societies should be included in this study. However, we would argue that it is still important to include them in a study of associational periodical production as, at the very least, they add to the quantitative evidence for this type of practice.
More broadly, it is hoped that by at least recording the evidence for a magazine’s production, future work and/or further discoveries might bring to light these missing issues amongst private holdings and (more) public archives.
Name of Club, Society or Group That Produced the Magazine
Original Union Club (Glasgow)
Date of Existence
1831?-?
Date of Magazine
circa 1831-32
Number of Issues
1 (unknown if scrapbook extant)
Manuscript/Published Magazine
Manuscript
Contents and Contributions
Poems (original)
Repository
(See newspaper clipping in Young’s Scrapbooks, housed in Mitchell Library Special Collections)
Reference
(Young’s Scrapbooks, Vol. 21, p. 54)
Additional Notes
See also entry for Original Union Club on our sister website, Glasgow’s Literary Bonds.