Brougham Literary Club (possibly same as Brougham Literary Institute)

Overview

It is possible that this society was named for Henry Brougham (1778-1868), a highly influential advocate of social reform who helped to found the Edinburgh Review, and whose utilitarian philosophy was behind his Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK) was founded in November 1826, largely under the direction of Henry Brougham, who, along with George Birkbeck, George Grote, and William Tooke, formed a committee that became the SDUK, whose aim was the education of the working and middle classes through the production and publication of cheap educational books and materials. The society ceased to exist after 1848. (For an overview of the history of the society, see Robert Stewart, Henry Brougham, 1778-1868: His Public Career (London: The Bodley Head, 1985), pp. 188-95.)

There is little currently known about this club. From its listing in the Glasgow Post Office directory for 1863-1864, we know that beginning in 1861, the group met every Friday evening from September until April. The meeting place of the club was listed as being 38 Hutcheson Street, the address given in the same directory for ‘Patton, John spirit merchant’, so members were gathering at a local pub.

Date of Existence

1861-?

Source of Information

1.’Brougham Literary  Club’, ‘Literary and Scientific Societies’, Post Office Glasgow Directory for 1863, 1864… (Glasgow: William Mackenzie, 1863), p. 88;