It appeared mildly incongruous for a trio of refined, well-heeled students to be sitting around munching fries in McDonald’s past midnight. We had come in from the other end of town. I had rushed from a PhD event in Stirling to meet them at a location utterly different from Ronald McDonald’s lair. The others had left prior to our fast-food sojourn, leaving me with these two. As we
ate, one of the pair continued to fill me in on the workings of the Speculative Society, which he belonged to.
“The Spec”, as its members often call it, is a private, invitation-only group whose formal purpose is to meet for debating sessions to advance its members’ oratorical and literary skills. Its members are no ordinary joes; The Scotsman columnist Allan Massie is an Honorary Member, while in 2015 it was reported that Princess Anne, Chancellor of the University, had been invited to become an Honorary Member herself. Since its formation in 1764, the Speculative Society has also counted among its ranks former Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott. The group has no official links to the University, but it periodically meets in the University’s Old College for candlelit sessions.
Members are individuals who will have a role in public life, explained Speculative Society member David Purdie, who I interviewed far away from McDonald’s a month prior. “Anyone who has to stand up and make a case in public, or in private…anyone who has to advocate a position with force and effectiveness,” Purdie explained.
Purdie, an Honorary Fellow at the University’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), explained that members attend three years as Ordinary Members before becoming “not an Extraordinary Member but a Member Extraordinary”, like Purdie himself, who is entitled to attend any of the Society’s meetings. “It concentrates the mind rather quickly,” a laughing Purdie continued, “to see one or two grey heads, an old Judge or Professor in Philosophy or something, sitting there listening to you…Many academics, me included, pay more attention to their Spec essays than anything else except their Inaugural Lecture when they get their Chair.”
If you peruse blogs and the like, you’ll find people who believe the Society to be pompous and malevolent. One high-ranking member told me, “A lot of people say ‘Oh, this or that judge is a member of The Spec and so there must be a big conspiracy’, when in actuality that judge has just worked hard to get to where they are today.” When I spoke to Purdie, he told me that a critic once claimed that eighty-percent of the High Court Judges in Edinburgh were members of the Speculative Society. “And that was true,” Purdie chuckled, “because they had all been members when they were young Advocates, long before they went to the bench.”
In 2014, critics argued that the Society had not contributed to the University’s many achievements, but in a public lecture that same year Purdie noted that the Society had actually contributed to the Old College building’s construction. A not insignificant feat, and one that, in 2014, Purdie claimed was often overlooked by the media. One individual also told me that criticism of the Society comes from people who simply have no idea what’s going on. A considerable argument between two sides, then, and one that perhaps parallels the Speculative Society’s private candlelit debates.
While we guzzled our chicken nuggets in McDonald’s, I reflected on a flippant question I received earlier from a member of the Speculative Society. The memory had been triggered by a trio who sat opposite us, ordinary non-members who were loud and proud in all their gregariousness.
“So, on a scale from one to ten, how weird do you think we are?”
I laughed, “I’d consider myself a ten, while you guys are an eight.”
He nodded proudly.
“That’s about right.”
As we left McDonald’s for the freezing cold, it struck me how friendly these chaps were. A mysterious group, for sure, but one that left an undeniably warm sensation in the heart amidst my frequent fears of inadequacy. Their company had spurred me to rest and write this piece, former Speculative Society Secretary Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake resonating profoundly as we stepped into the pouring rain;
“…hope is brightest when it dawns from fears;
The rose is sweetest when washed with morning dew
And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears.”
“Old College, University of Edinburgh, Old Town, Edinburgh, Scotland” by Billy Wilson Photography is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.