HIGHLAND SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Minute book of the Burns Club. A unique manuscript book, recording the meetings of the first six years of the Sydney Burns Club, together with a scarce facsimile printing of Burns's original manuscript for the poem "Scots Wha' Hae", presented to the Highland Society of New South Wales in the 1890s. Together, these items offer a fascinating insight into the preservation and promotion of Scottish culture in late 19th-century Australia.The minute book is written across 50 pages, with several additional manuscript pages loosely inserted. Following the club's foundation in 1880, the club hosted Burns Night celebrations, arranged concerts of Scottish songs, and campaigned for a memorial statue to the poet in Sydney, which was unveiled in 1905. The first entry records the club's inaugural meeting on 10 September 1880: "This evening, a number of gentlemen... members of the Highland Society of N.S.W. met at the Rooms, Waterloo Chambers to take into consideration the desirability of forming a Burns Club. Mr A. Kethel was voted to the Chair and explained fully the good to be derived from the study of the works of Burns and other Scottish authors".The facsimile of "Scots Wha' Hae" is inscribed at the head of the first page "A replica of the Original Copy - printed privately for the Town Council of Edinburgh - Copy belonging to Baillie J. Murray, presented by him to this Society", with the society's ink stamp on the final page. We can trace only one other copy of the facsimile, held by th

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.