Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Contributors
- Foreword by James Hunter
- Introduction: Scottish Highlands and the Atlantic World: Social Networks and Identities
- Part One Land
- Part Two Language and Culture
- Part Three Networks of Empowerment and Oppression
- Epilogue: Contested Boundaries – Documenting the Socio-cultural Dimensions of Empire
- Index
7 - The Gaelic Club of Glasgow: Gateway from the Scottish Highlands to the British Atlantic World, 1780–1838
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2025
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Contributors
- Foreword by James Hunter
- Introduction: Scottish Highlands and the Atlantic World: Social Networks and Identities
- Part One Land
- Part Two Language and Culture
- Part Three Networks of Empowerment and Oppression
- Epilogue: Contested Boundaries – Documenting the Socio-cultural Dimensions of Empire
- Index
Summary
During a grand tour of Scotland in the summer of 1799, Virginian born merchant Littleton Dennis Teackle attended an exclusive meeting of the Gaelic Club of Glasgow, held in the Black Bull Inn in the commercial centre near the Trongate:
By appointment, I [was] accompanied … to a Meeting of the Gaelic Society. My friend C_ was excluded from partaking of the feast, by the charter of the Society, which forbids all inhabitants of the City who are not members from attending their meetings. The father is of the fraternity. I was ushered into a large Room amidst 40 or 50 gentlemen. Those that were members were distinguishable by their Tartan Dresses. The Strangers were equally numerous with the Members. I was introduced to the President & the officers of the Fraternity … This Society is chiefly composed of the first Merchants in this place & every member of it is a person of property & respectability. The president is our consul here, he showed me much civility.
Established in March 1780, the Gaelic Club's surviving minutes – held in Glasgow City Archives – confirm Teackle's attendance as a ‘stranger’ alongside a ‘numerous and highly respectable company’ on 18 July 1799. The group of prominent merchants and manufacturers enjoyed an evening of ‘great harmony and conviviality’ in the company of Teackle, a transatlantic merchant who would go on to become an enslaver in Virginia and ultimately a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. These events brought together not only those of Highland descent in Glasgow but established relationships between commercial luminaries in Scotland and across the Atlantic world.
Recounting how guests from Virginia dined on calipee and calipash with tartan-clad Highlanders at a club in eighteenth-century Glasgow reveals a colonial mentalité better than any ledger book. On the evening of 18 July 1799, one of Glasgow's most prominent West India merchants, Alexander Campbell of Hallyards, ‘presented the club with a Turtle’, one that was likely brought back alive from the Caribbean as a fresh, luxury item for the elite dinner table. Teackle was invited ‘to partake of their mirth and hilarity’ and enjoy the feast:
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- Scottish Highlands and the Atlantic WorldSocial Networks and Identities, pp. 148 - 169Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2023