Glasgow Shakspere Society

On 20 February 2026 the Clydebank Post reported on a discovery that sheds light on the history of Shakespeare in Glasgow.  A local resident contacted the Glasgow Shakespeare Society telling them he owned a ticket for the Club’s dinner on Shakespeare’s Birthday in 1852. For six shillings (30p), the holder got dinner and a pint of wine.

The current society has been reading Shakespeare’s plays since around 1970 and was unaware that Glaswegians had been celebrating Shakespeare all those years before.

It was one of the earliest of Shakespeare Clubs. The first known one (of which little is known) was the Shakespeare Ladies Club formed in 1736 when four “Women of Quality” met to read and discuss Shakespeare’s plays, lobbied for more Shakespeare plays in the theatre, and successfully campaigned for a statue of Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner. Another early club was the Sheffield Shakespeare Society which met from 1819 to 1829, publishing its transactions before vanishing. The oldest Shakespeare Club still in existence is the Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Club founded in 1824. Tickets to its early dinners still exist in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust archives, and the Club owns one from 1828.

Shakespeare Clubs and Societies reached a peak in the late 1850s. Some read plays, some held lectures, some organised celebrations, but on Shakespeare’s Birthday, 23^rd April, all seem to have enjoyed a good dinner with speeches, songs, and plenty of wine.