Rosebery Burns Club (not same as Kilbirnie Rosebery Burns Club)

Overview

This was a fairly large Burns club, with 94 members on the roll in 1893, and it nearly doubled its size in 1902, with 180 members reported. The group met from September until April on Tuesdays at 8pm (later at 7.45pm). In 1914, this was changed to monthly meetings on the first Tuesday of the month. The venue for the meetings also changed over the years: in 1892, the club met at the Bath Hotel (8 Hope Street, just to the west of the city centre); in 1895 at the Cobden Hotel (87 Argyle Street); in 1903 at the Bank Restaurant (Queen Street); in 1905 at the Alexandra Hotel (Bath Street); in 1908 at the Prince of Wales Restaurant (Ferguson & Forrester, Limited) (Buchanan Street); then back to the Alexandra Hotel from 1911 until 1914 (at least).

The club met to hear lectures during the winter on Scottish literature, and, of course, to celebrate the works of the Bard on Burns night with a supper. In addition, it held junior and senior competitions in singing and reciting Scottish songs and poems for children and young adults. The group was keen to emphasise the ‘seriousness’ of its endeavours: in the ‘Club Notes’ of the Annual Burns Chronicle and Directory issued in 1905, following a report of that year’s competition, Mr Pollock, the president, wrote:

‘”I am glad to see that some other Clubs are following the example of the Rosebery. To my mind, if a Club can only organize a dinner on the 25th and a smoking concert or two, when drinking is the main food, intellectually and physically, of the guests, it had better not have been born. To foster the preservation of Scottish dialect in literature and song is a worthy task for a Burns Club. When Bacchanalians, who miscall themselves Burnsites, meet merely to eat and drink, they disgrace the name they profess to worship.”’

(‘Club Notes’, ‘Rosebery Burns Club, Glasgow’, in Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XIV (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1905), pp. 107-110 (p. 110))

The club published the lectures that were given to the club from at least 1898, copies of which were available from ‘Messrs Holmes & Co., Booksellers, Dunlop Street, Glasgow; and others’. In 1906, it published a history of the group. In 1913, in association with the Carlton Burns Club, the Rosebery club announced it would be producing six volumes  of Burns’s poems in braille which were to be sold for £1 for the set.

Around 1902, the group began to host ‘inter-visitation[s] of brother Burns Clubs’. During the 1913-14 session, the invited visitors included members of the Albany, Bridgeton, Carlton, Greenock, and Sandyford Clubs (see ‘Additional Notes’).

In 1913, life membership was £30, which: ‘entitle[d] Members to all the advantages of the Club, including the privilege of bringing two friends to the Lectures and Musical Evenings of the Club’ (‘Club Notes’, ‘Rosebery Burns Club’, in Annual Burns Chronicle and Club Directory, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XXII (Kilmarnock: The Burns Federation, January 1913), p. 145).

Date of Existence

1885-1913? Federated 1887

Source of Information

1. Anniversary meeting in the Bath Hotel on Wednesday, 25th Jan. 93, at 6.45p. m., Rosebery Burns Club (MLSC, Mitchell (AL) 557560);

2. Rosebery Burns Club, Minutes, 27 November 1894-1905 (MLSC, 907884);

3. Opening of session 1897-98 (1898) (MLSC, Mitchell (AL) 13 ROS 154844);

4. Address given to the Rosebery Burns Club, Glasgow: with special reference to the centenary Burns of W. E. Henley: January 25, 1898 (MLSC, Mitchell (AL) 6 BEG 209616);

5. Begg, F. Faithfull, Rosebery Burns Club, Glasgow, January 25th, 1898: speech…in proposing the toast of Caledonia and Caledonia’s bard (MLSC, Mitchell (AL) 6 BEG 907881a);

6. Poems [Rosebery Burns Club] (1898) (ML, Mitchell (GC) 154844);

7. Glasgow Contemporaries at the Dawn of the XXth Century (Glasgow: The Photo-Biographical Publishing Co., [1901]), p. 159 (ML, Mitchell (GC) 920.04 GLA 499009);

8. Muir, Pearson M’Adam, Robert Burns : his genius and influence: address delivered to the Rosebery Burns Club, 24th January, 1902 (ML, Mitchell (AL) 6 MUI 209662);

9. (Newspaper clipping:) ‘Rosebery Burns Club’, (annotated:) ‘Citizen. 15 March 1905’ (MLSC, Young’s Scrapbooks, Vol. 1, [p. 32]);

10. Cross, Alexander, The Immortal Memory: a speech to the members of the Rosebery Burns Club, January 24, 1906 (MLSC, Mitchell (AL) 15 CRO 889859);

11. Angus, James, The Rosebery Burns Club, Glasgow: a short sketch of its origin and growth (Glasgow: W.&R. Holmes; Stirling: E. Mackay, 1906) (NLS, General Reading Room, 1958.22);

12. ‘Rosebery Burns Club. Gold Medal Competition for Amateurs’, 28 March 1907 (MLSC, Glasgow Scrapbooks, No. 23, p. 217);

13. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies for 1893’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. II (Kilmarnock: D. Brown & Co., Glasgow and Edinburgh: J. Menzies & Co., January 1893), p. 190;

14. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1894’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. III (Kilmarnock: D. Brown & Co., February 1894), p. 194;

15. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1895’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. IV (Kilmarnock: D. Brown & Co., January 1895), p. 176;

16. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1896’, in BC,ed. by D. M’Naught, No. V (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1896), p. 132;

17. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1897’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. VI (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1897), p. 151;

18. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1898′, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. VII (Kilmarnock: Burn Federation, January 1898), p. 138;

19. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1902’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XI (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1902), p. 136;

20. ‘Club Notes’, and ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1905’, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XIV (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1905), pp. 107-110, p. 149;

21. ‘Directory of Burns Clubs and Scottish Societies on the Roll of the Burns Federation, 1908′, in BC, ed. by D. M’Naught, No. XIX (Kilmarnock: Burns Federation, January 1908), p. 132;

22. ‘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. 161;