About
The Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club celebrates the life, works, and legacy of Scotland’s greatest storyteller.
Founded over a century ago, the Club today remains an active and thriving literary society of over 200 members, drawn from Edinburgh, across the UK, and overseas.
Through a vibrant programme of meetings, lectures, excursions, and online publications, we explore Sir Walter Scott’s enduring influence — not only in literature, but across art, history, music, law, architecture, ecology, and cultural identity.
Our aim is to advance public understanding and appreciation of Scott’s work, ensuring his ideas remain alive, accessible, and dynamic for new generations.
The Club typically hosts five or six lectures per year, alongside an Annual Dinner and a joint lecture with the University of Edinburgh’s English Department, at which we award the [Scottish Literary Studies Medal].
Our events bring together leading academics, novelists, historians, artists, and cultural figures, reflecting a strong commitment to serious scholarship as well as a spirit of conviviality and open discussion.
Throughout its history, the Club has been honoured to have many distinguished statesmen, novelists, historians, and literary figures as its President — including Stanley Baldwin, John Buchan, Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Macmillan, David Daiches, Edwin Morgan, Dorothy Dunnett, Paul H. Scott, Magnus Magnusson, Tom Fleming, and James Robertson. At our 100th Annual Dinner, we were privileged to welcome HRH The Princess Royal as our Honorary Guest.
Rooted in the historic city that so deeply shaped Scott’s imagination, the Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club continues to offer a welcoming community for all who are drawn to Scott’s world — through scholarship, creativity, or a shared love of storytelling, heritage, and culture.
The Scott Monument
History of the Club
In May 1893, Dr. Charles A. Cooper (editor of the Scotsman) dined by chance with James Smail and Dr. James Kerr at Holyrood Palace as guests of The Lord High Commissioner (Gavin Campbell, 1st Marquess of Breadalbane). Over the course of their conversation, there arose the idea of forming a Club to honour the life and work of Sir Walter Scott. Dr. Cooper encouraged them to write a letter to the Scotsman and within a year the club was in existence.
The constitution of the Club was framed in June 1894 at a meeting held in Dowell's Rooms, Edinburgh and approved at its first AGM and Dinner in the Waterloo Rooms in November of that year - 161 of the 468 original members being present.
Dr Charles A. Cooper was elected President. He said, "Two duties this Club must perform; one is to honour the memory of Scott, the other is to lead those who as yet have not known him, to the flower-strewn fields that he has prepared for them."
Annual Membership cost just 5s. with Life Membership at 2 Guineas - all applications having to be approved by the then 18 members of Council! Today, the club has almost 250 members.
The objectives of the Club are to preserve the literary reputation of Sir Walter Scott through meetings, lectures, publications, and excursions - and to advance the education of the public concerning his life and works. The Club no longer collects relics of Scott but is still one of the most active literary associations in Edinburgh.
Within the Club's first year, an [Annual Essay Competition] was established to encourage young scholars to study the works of Scott. Sir Eric Anderson, the former Provost of Eton, admitted at one of the Club's meetings that he would never have gone on to edit Scott's Journal had he not won an Essay Prize as an Edinburgh schoolboy at George Watson's.
Among its Presidents appear distinguished statesmen, historians, and men of letters, including Stanley Baldwin, John Buchan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and The Earl of Stockton (Harold Macmillan). More recently, the Presidency has been graced by Allan Massie, Paul Scott, and the late Magnus Magnusson.
A lady President whose memory the Club particularly treasures was Dame Jean Maxwell-Scott, chatelaine of Abbotsford and gt.gt.gt grand-daughter of Sir Walter. Dame Jean delighted in the creation of the Sir Walter Scott Way, a 92-mile walkway across Border country from Moffat to Cockburnspath, which connected various places which inspired his poems and novels - and which she formally opened in 2003. Dame Jean was also lady-in-waiting to Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, herself a daughter of the 7th Duke of Buccleuch.
The Club was also greatly indebted to the late Fraser Elgin. For over 25 years since the 1980s, he tirelessly invigorated the Club and oversaw its presence in the City both as a literary institution and as a vehicle for the continued study and appreciation of the man who remains our greatest novelist.
Minute Books
Council Minute Books
They contain the signatures of almost all past Presidents including: Stanley Baldwin, Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, C.S.Lewis, Ludovic Kennedy, Lord Tweedsmuir and Magnus Magnusson
From 1894-1958
View it here: [1894 Minute Book]
From 1958-1986
View it here:
[1958 Minute Book]
