As we start a new era with Purton Magazine, I thought you might be interested to see a very early version of the Magazine or shall we say one of its precursors.
As we start a new era with Purton Magazine, I thought you might be interested to see a very early version of the Magazine or shall we say one of its precursors.
Home Words was a magazine published in Paternoster Square, London in leaflet form once a month starting in 1884, very much a Christian book and containing “wholesome and interesting reading”. Looking at the volume for 1893, the contents include serialized short stories, sermons, poems, the Young Folks’ Page, several biographies of churchmen and missionaries, educational articles on insects and more… not forgetting the Housewife’s Corner with domestic tips. Did you know that if brooms are soaked in strong hot salt and water before using, the splints will not break in sweeping?
With the national version of the magazine came a separate pink sheet entitled Purton Parochial Magazine but bearing the Home Words imprint as these local sheets were also printed in London. Usually these Parish Notes reached as far as one side of paper but occasionally got to two sides. In the January 1893 bumper issue, the vicar, Rev J. Veysey, wrote: “We have entered upon the ninth year of our acquaintance with Home Words as our Parish Magazine. When it was introduced, I little thought that we should have kept company with it for so long, and yet it is as popular as ever. It contains as good a pennyworth of wholesome and interesting reading as can be found anywhere.”
Among the parish notices we read that the Parochial Tea was fixed for Thursday January 5th at 7 o’clock and that the Clothing Club would be re-opened again on January 13th.
It also says that all those who wish to have their back numbers of the magazine bound should send them via their distributor to the Vicarage. It is these annual bound volumes which have survived into the Museum’s collection.
Click here if you want to see a larger picture of the books.
