The membership card of the 1st Glasgow was not all about drill and discipline and rules for good behaviour. There was promise of a swimming club, a cricket club, gymnastics with dumbbells and Indian clubs, and an ambulance class. It was all very like a junior edition of the Volunteers. A most unusual thing for boys at that time was a cheerful Club Room, comfortably furnished, with a supply of games, newpapers, magazines and writing materials, and a small library. Members of the Company were welcome there on their spare evenings to sit and talk or read or amuse themselves in their own way. Blackie, the well known publishers, were generous year by year in the supply of popular books for boys. The best known writers of the day were G.A.Henry and R.M.Ballantyne. The former was represented by such titles as:

In Freedom's Cause: a story of Wallace and Bruce, Facing Death: A Tale of Coal Mines, and Captain Bagley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold fields of California. 

One of R.M Ballantyne's stirring tales on the Club Room shelves was an adventure yarn called Blown to Bits, and his Martin Rattler and Coral Island were great favourites.

A 'treat' for the Boys was a Saturday evening visit to the Captains new home for tea and cream cakes. William Smith married Amelia Pearson Sutherland in March 1884 and he and his 'Pearcie', as he always called her, came to live at 4 Ann Street, Hillhead, in the fashionable West End of the city, near the University and within easy walking distance of the North Woodside Mission Hall. Every Saturday evening during the winter months a squad of 12 boys from the Company sat down to tea in their dining room.Mrs Smith entertained them with folk-songs in Spanish, a language she had learned in her childhood days in Gibraltar. She brought out her best silver and table linen for her tea-parties and there was always a big iced cake with the squad number embossed in cherries. Although Smith was to travel tirelessly the length and breadth of the land to promote the Boys' Brigade, his home was always at Hillhead. It was there his two sons were born, George Stanley Smith and Douglas Pearson Smith. They were never B.B Boys themselves, but were to give notable service to the Movement.

B.B. Boys from Newport with their Dragon in 1980 

In his first plans William Smith had said to his friends 'This is going to be a great thing; let us put it in God's hands'. Now he could look to an exciting future for the Brigade--a regional, even national perhaps an international movement. There was already several other Companies in the West End of Glasgow, led by fellow Officers of the 1st Lanarkshire Volunteers. They met at the Smiths home on 26th January 1885 to form themselves into a Council of The Boys' Brigade, with a Constitution that st out the rules. By the time of the first annual meeting of the Council in October, there were twelve Companies in Glasgow and three in Edinburgh. A prominent Glasgow tobacco merchant, J. Carfrae Alston, who was also a Major in the 1st Lanarkshire Volunteers, was elected first President of the Council. One wonders if the Captain of the 1st Glasgow dared to remind him of the strict rule for his Boys 'not to smoke or chew tobacco'!

  

Some of the members of the 1st Glasgow. 9th April 1885 

Smith himself although he was the founder of the Boys' Brigade, chose to undertake the duties of Secretary. All his life he had an unerring eye for men of influence in public life who could help the B.B.city merchants, university professors, eminent churchmen and, of course the military heroes of the day. Two stalwarts of the early days were Professor George Henry Drummond of the University of Aberdeen, and Professor Henry Drummond of the department of Natural Science at the Free Church College in Glasgow.

It was time to speak of the movement not only in terms of Companies but also Battalions and The Brigade. The three pioneer English Companies were the 1st London, the 1st Manchester and the 1st Armitage Bridge, all enrolled on 23rd November 1885. The 1st Newport was the pioneer in Wales in 1887 and a year later William McVicker visited Glasgow to learn all he could about the B.B., and returned to Ireland to found the 1st Belfast Company.Soon one could speak of the B.B. from Wick to the Channel Islands, and there was already a Company in the United States, to be followed by others in Canada, Auckland in New Zealand, Cape Town in South Africa, and in the West Indies.The enthusiastic Proffesor Henry Drummond went off on a visit to Australia, taking with him specimens of the B.B. cap, belt and haversack, and a large supply of British Literature which he hoped to use "for the purpose of creating an interest in the movement throughout the Australian Colonies."

The organization of the Brigade was now a full time job. At the end of 1887 William Smith gave up his post in the business world and on 1st January 188 he was at his desk as Secretary of The Boys' Brigade in their first headquarters at 68 Bath Street, Glasgow, and an Officer of the Volunteers, until the day of his death.

The Annual Drill Inspection for Glasgow in 1889 was held on the Spring Holiday, with 81 Companies on display and 3649 Boys of all ranks, led by fife and drum and brass bands. A detachment of two NCO's and twenty men of the 15th Hussars (The Kings), splendidly mounted and equipped, kept the grounds and controlled the admiring crowds.

The Founder and Secretary turned his mind to supply a guide to the origin and object and working of a Company of the Boys' Brigade.The Manual: How to form and conduct a Company, was the first of many editions to be consulted, memorized, even argued about by every generation of B.B. Officers. From the first it was known as 'the little red book'.

William Smiths daily work for many years consisted of writing long, careful letters by hand in reply to the many calls for advice and help that came in from all the different Companies, as well as dealing with enrollments, registration, subscriptions, and a hundred and one other details of administration. He also founded and edited 'The Boys' Brigade Gazette', and wrote a good deal of it himself in the early days to give good counsel for the day to day running of an ordinary Company. He has many wise, good humoured comments to share with new Officers. About the running of Bible class, for instance:

Either a well-conducted Bible Class, or an address of a religious character to be given at the ordinary drill meeting...diligence should be given to have the address short and full of meaning. Make the service bright and Boylike....Warn your speakers to keep to their time. Always stop before the interest of the Boys is exhausted.....Don't preach at the Boys....Don't confine yourself to Onward Christian Soldiers!....Never make Boys sing what they don't believe, e.g 'Earth is a desert Drear'.........Never hedge at difficulties in the Word. Boys mix freely among sceptics....Don't find fault with the attendance at the Bible Class, the boys who are present are not the defaulters.