Early Membership
Sauchie and Canglour Curling Club was formed in 1857 at a meeting at Pirnhall Cottage (now the Pirnhall Inn). The attendees were locals from the surrounding rural area with the majority of them involved on farms or estates around the area of Canglour and Sauchie House itself. The club joined the Royal Caledonian Curling Club (RCCC) in July 1860. The curling initially took place at a pond in Barr Wood then later on a pond at an old distillery nearer Bannockburn. A patron of the club attempted to promote the use of a pond at Buckieburn with a splendid medal, but being in the Carron valley to the south of Loch Coulter (see map below) was too far from most of the members.
The map below shows the area where the members were drawn from, with actual members indicated as blue markers and the three ponds used by the club marked in yellow. The sources used were the RCCC Annuals, combined with newspaper reports and a review of Scottish Census returns for 1851, 1861 and 1871 to match member names to addresses and occupations. Farmers and their sons make up most of the membership below, but there are land and estate owners listed along with working class labourers and middle class shop and inn keepers and manufacturers. It is well documentated that curling was a very egalitarian sport enjoyed by all stratas of society and this club was no exception.
The map below shows the area where the members were drawn from, with actual members indicated as blue markers and the three ponds used by the club marked in yellow. The sources used were the RCCC Annuals, combined with newspaper reports and a review of Scottish Census returns for 1851, 1861 and 1871 to match member names to addresses and occupations. Farmers and their sons make up most of the membership below, but there are land and estate owners listed along with working class labourers and middle class shop and inn keepers and manufacturers. It is well documentated that curling was a very egalitarian sport enjoyed by all stratas of society and this club was no exception.
It would take Sauchie and Bannockburn until 1888 to grow beyond this for the first time. Where it has been recorded, there was a drift in membership from the rural areas around Auchenbowie towards Bannockburn itself and surrounding neighbourhoods of Whins of Milton and St Ninians with more urban occupations such as innkeeper, butcher etc. joining the club. In 1890, the club created a chaplain of the club when the Rev. James Allan, Bannockburn joined the club and when other ministers joined, there was a rotation of who was club chaplain. The core of the membership remained farmers and special farming events such as harvest, agricultural shows and markets had to be avoided to minimise their impact on the activities of the club.
From the opening of Falkirk Ice Rink when the restriction of the membership to fifty was rescinded, the new membership was drawn from a wider area including Denny, Dunblane, Bridge of Allan and Stirling as well as Bannockburn. |
In terms of membership numbers Sauchie and Canglour was a small club by the standard of the day. From its initial beginning with 19 members, the numbers varied from as low as 15 to a maximum of 26 in any one year. At the 1876 AGM, it is noted that for the first time a miner, J.A. Cairns from Dunmore Pit was made a member. Throughout the history of the club, there has always been a wide range of ages in the membership, with many father and son members. Indeed there are a number of recorded deaths of active members in the minutes with some memberships lasting well over forty years. John Muirhead had been President for 26 years and member for over 62 years on his death in 1933. William Muirhead had been Vice President for 25 years on his death in 1898.
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