Belfast Newspapers and Societies in the Nineteenth Century

The town, though situated little more than six feet above high water mark of spring tides, is considered healthy, the air being pure and salubrious; and the surrounding scenery is richly diversified and, in many parts, picturesque. An extended range of mountains, 1100 feet in height, rises at the distance of two miles to the north-west; and within the limits of the parish is Divis mountain, 1567 feet above the level of the sea at low water. The views down the lough in a north-eastern direction are strikingly beautiful, the shores on both sides being decorated with elegant country seats and plantations. The inhabitants have long been distinguished for their zealous encouragement of literary pursuits, and the first edition of the Bible ever published in Ireland was printed at Belfast in the year 1704. In this town also was established, in 1737, the Belfast News Letter, the first newspaper ever printed in the North of Ireland: there are now several others, also a Mercantile Register and monthly periodicals.

The Belfast Society for Promoting Knowledge, established in 1788, is supported by annual subscriptions of one guinea; the library contains more than 8000 volumes, and there are a cabinet of minerals, and a valuable philosophical apparatus. The Literary Society, for improvement in literature, science, antiquities, and the arts, was established in 1801; and the Historic Society, for the study of general history, the British laws and constitution, and the cultivation of oratory, in 1811. The Natural History Society, established in 1821, has recently erected a very handsome building: the lower story is an imitation of the Choragic monuments of Thrasyllus, with a portico, which is an exact copy of that of the octagon tower of Andronicus at Athens; and the upper portions are designed after the model of the temple of Minerva: the interior comprises several spacious, lofty, and elegant apartments, with lecture-rooms, an observatory, and a very valuable museum. The Botanic Gardens were formed in connection with the Natural History Society, by some of the members, who, in 1827, purchased for that purpose about 16 acres of land, on the banks of the Lagan, about a mile from the town, on the Malone road: they are under the direction of a committee of 21, elected from the holders of 500 shares of five guineas each, of whom those holding less than four shares pay also a subscription annually; the society has expended more than £4000 on these gardens, to which persons may subscribe without being shareholders.

A spacious and handsome news-room, to which respectable strangers have free access, on entering their names in a book kept for the purpose, occupies the lower story of the Commercial Buildings: there is another large news-room in one of the wings of the White Linen Hall; a third has been recently opened in connection with the office of the Northern Whig newspaper, and a fourth under the patronage of the Belfast Society. Over the exchange is an elegant suite of assembly-rooms; there are also others in the Commercial Buildings, and there is a neat theatre in Arthur-street. On the north-eastern side of the town are artillery and infantry barracks; and a town-major is regularly appointed, this being nominally a garrison town: it is also a chief constabulary police station for the county.