at which time the annual subscription cost five shillings. The society was "set up to promote and celebrate the uniqueness of Scottish culture and Scotland's heritage, and to reclaim Scotland's place as a distinct contributor to European and international culture".

By the early 1950s, the society had almost 2000 members. In 1954 they launched a literary magazine, The Scots Review, published three times a year. In 1968 the society appointed their first full-time director, based at their headquarters at Gladstone's Land