by Honor Hania

On 31 August,1848, the Dublin Evening Post, under the heading of Society of St Vincent de Paul, reported on page 3 that:

‘A branch of this laudable and praiseworthy institution has been opened in Glasgow, with the concurrence of the Right Rev Dr. Murdoch, Vicar Apostolic. of the Western District. The Rev. Wm. Gordon, of St Andrew’s, has accepted the spiritual directorship. At a meeting of the members, held on the evening of Tuesday, the 22nd, J. B. Bryson, Eq., to whose indefatigable exertions we owe the establishment of this branch, was elected chairman’.

This year the Society of St Vincent de Paul in the Archdiocese of Glasgow celebrates 175 years of its existence. The Society had been founded in Paris in 1833 with the aim of personal sanctification of its members through service to the poor.

Branches of the Society, normally referred to as conferences, were springing up all over Europe and North America. The first Scottish conference was established in St Patrick’s Edinburgh in May 1845. Three years later, the Glasgow conference was formed at St Andrew’s. At this first meeting a solicitor, John Bryson, who had been a member of the Edinburgh SSVP Conference, became the president. Other members at the first meeting were David Rogers (vice chair), Hugh Margey (treasurer), John Trainor (secretary), James McLachlan and Archibald McLachlan.

Honor Hania is working on a PhD thesis on the history of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Scotland.