The Society Bar, 386-88 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow.
Mr P Queen Tosney. 1892.
Mr P Queen Tosney was a sturdy and unflinching advocate of the people’s rights. He struggled trying to put together the Scottish Clerk’s Association, how in the face of determination opposition he pegged on and on and ploughed right through every obstacle that lay across the path until the organisation stood on its feet and became a power for good among the vast army of clerks who have to earn a scant livelihood in this and others centre’s, how he worked when secretary of the Wine, Spirit and Beer Trade Association, fought the fanatical and visionary army of teetotalers inch by inch and foot by foot until he compelled them to abandon their guerilla mode of warfare and come out into the open.
For eight years he was Grand Secretary of the St. Andrew Order of Free Gardeners, and unanimously appointed Grand Master of that Order, and has been presented with a Pst Master’s silver chain of office. Mr Tosney was the first chairman of the Board of Directors of the Scottish Clerk’s Association. While secretary of the Wine, Spirit and Beer Trade Association his unwearied labour’s were recognised and his defence of the trade with pen and voice in newspapers and on platform, cannot be over-estimated in importance. His retiral from the secretary ship was due to the fact that he had two public houses to run, one at 386-88 St. Vincent Street and another in Dalmuir, and named them the “Society Bar.”
Mr Tosney’s Dalmuir pub had earned itself a reputation for the way in which it was conducted, he was very successful in these premises and acquired another pub in St. Vincent Street.
Mr Tosney was a Free Mason, an Oddfellow, a Shepherd, a Forester and a Druid; is a patron of Dalmuir Thistle Football Club and president of the Clydebank Football Club.
In the 1870s William Poultry was landlord in this old pub, Mr Tosney was short lived in the licensed trade and sold up the following year. Mr George H Ogston then took over the pub, he served the customers here for a few years. Before the First World War John Urquart took over and continued through the hard and depression of the war. During the 1930s John L Connelly was running the pub. The premises had a name change and many will still remember it as the Minerva Bar. One of the last license holders to operate the pub was Edward Boyle during the 1970s. The pub was demolished mid 70s.
Leave a Reply