The patron was the 6th Duke of Buccleuch, William Montague Douglas Scott, who died in November 1914 but his son John, the 7th Duke, accepted an invitation from the society to succeed his father as patron. The secretary was Rev George Orr.

The society arranged regular lectures but these were cancelled during the war. It did, however, proceed with an excavation near Gilnockie Tower, five miles from Langholm, to see if any evidence could be found for an earlier tower that had been used by Johnnie Armstrong, a notorious border reiver (raider). The excavation was undertaken by William Hyslop, a contractor, who found some stones from a building but they were thought to be too modern to have belonged to Johnnie Armstrong’s tower which was constructed in around 1510 and was known as Hollows Tower. It was burned down in 1528 by Sir Christopher Dacre, Warden of the English West Marches, and was subsequently rebuilt twice.

A cow once made its way up the spiral staircase onto the roof and is said to have spent a couple of hours there before falling to its death.