Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
The Editor
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© F.Coakley , 2026
[from A.M Harrision's Descriptive List of Insular Societies]
Not in A.H.
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Founded in 1879 (see account in Brave Manx Women) - very much a middle class run society in its early years though with significant friends and supporters - Lady Loch for example. Miss Wood who was to play a significant role in Island music making is noted in press accounts of meetings. The following letter shows a thoughtful resume of what the organisers wished to see.
Mona's Herald, Wednesday, 17th January 1883
To the Editor of Mona's Herald.
Sir.
As a member of the Committee of the Young Women's Christian Association, I am authorised to express our thanks for the exceedingly courteous recognition of our Association contained in your paper last week : and we feel that on our side an apology is due for our not having requested you to publish the report of our yearly meeting, it having already appeared in the columns of your contemporaries. It was owing entirely to the supposition that as your paper appeared later on in the ensuing week, you would on your own accord, if you approved of the article, bring it before your readers. We truly regret our mistake, though perhaps to it is indebted the kind notice of the discerning "Man about Town."
A chief aim when three years ago we started a branch of the Y.W.C.A. in Douglas, was to strive to do good without in any way interfering or appearing to interfere with any work already in existence at all akin to that we proposed. As far as we are able we seek the general good and recognise the claims of others as of equal value with our own. We can truly say "Would O God that all the Lord's people" were endowed with the gifts of the Spirit in the fullest sense and empowered to carry out every scheme that can possibly be devised for the good of the church and society. Neither do we seek pecuniary assistance unless it be in the general and very exceptional sense of stating our need and leaving it to the good feeling of those so disposed to help us. Our present wish is to raise a sufficient sum of money to rent a house to use as an Institute similar to the Institutes of the Y.W.C.A. in different parts of England, where young women with time on their hands can in the evening find profitable amusement, and also have the benefit of religious and secular instruction. We should like to have cooking classes, but hitherto have been prevented, carrying out our wish on account of not having a place we can altogether call our own. We now rent a room for two nights a week ; but even if, we could spare a night, say once a fortnight, for a cooking class, a cooking apparatus would be objected to in this room. A house is indispensable with one or two good sized class-rooms, and a few bedrooms, that young women in business without homes in Douglas could rent on payment of a small sum weekly. This would have the advantage also of helping the Institute to be self-supporting. At our head we have a most valuable hon. Secretary unceasing in her labours and whose whole heart is in her work. So long as she is spared to us there can be no fear of a collapse. We trust indeed, that our Association albeit a comparatively silent witness for God's truth and humanity, is doing a good and lasting work. We can only say that by thus bringing young persons together precious bonds of fellowship are occasionally formed and the desire to help and sympathise one with another largely extended. Some of the instances are touching when in cases of illness the sufferer is frequently visited by her young class companions, who administer what comfort they can in gentle deeds and kindly words. Who can deny that after all the cultivation of fellow-feeling is the great means of sweetening life and raising and ennobling individuals and society ? The gracious presence and exercise of this principle, based on Divine compassion, is, we believe, the strength of our Association, and the means whereby some of its members' homes are the brighter and their own hearts purified and fortified for the battle of life. Happy households where between mistress and dependants there is perfect confidence, and where in the drawing-room and kitchen the same sanctified spirit animates the interests and the work of each day! Letters from time to time from members at a distance whom we passed on to branches elsewhere, abundantly testify to the grateful remembrance of the writers and their thankfulness that they had ever been asked to join us. We have also grateful words from poor fallen sisters whom we have been permitted to reclaim from a life of sin. This class of young women, however, cannot of course be admitted as members of the Association, but we strive to help them to turn from evil to good. In a few cases we have been successful, but this is a work of itself, and we pray God that He may open the way for came well-organised means in Douglas of rescuing these unfortunates. Several have come to as entreating to be saved from their surroundings, and sent away where they can as it were, begin life afresh. In each case we have done our best, but this branch of woman's work is not presumably a recognized feature of the Y.W.C.A. It is of its nature, a work wholly apart and requiring undivided thought and effort.
Perhaps to say more would be to forfeit the compliment paid to us by your Correspondent and to defeat our own wish to gain public favour without intruding our work too prominently on public notice.I remain, sir, yours truly.
"AN ASSOCIATE."
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Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
The Editor |
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