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The Editor
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© F.Coakley , 2026
[from A.M Harrision's Descriptive List of Insular Societies]
The rules of the Castletown Book Society, established December 1833, indicate a subscription book club in which, for an annual payment of 12s. paid in advance, the books chosen by each member would be bought, circulated throughout the membership on loan, and then returned at the the end of the year to the members who had requested them as their own property.
The Society's members, from the lists of books in circulation, were drawn from the leading families of the old capital of the Island, of both Manx and incomer extraction - the Manx Crellins and Quayle the Scottish Cuninghams of Lorne House, and Miss Ready, the resident Lieutenant-Governor's daughter, for example.
The Rev. Mr Wilson, the first principal of King William's College and the Rev. George Stickler Parsons, Chaplain of St. Mary's Castletown, with the Rev. F.B. Hartwell, Vicar General and Chaplain of St. George's, Douglas as Secretary, made up the Committee. The purpose of the Society, as might be expected from the Committee of clergymen was serious and Spiritual, the first rule stating that the publications ordered by members must be 'confined to religious and instruction works, Christian Memoirs and Biography - works of fiction to be excluded. There are no newspaper reports of this private association and no other records are known.
M.N.H.L.. M.M-Ms. 2340C
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Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
The Editor |
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