Libraries Tell A Story

Contemporary Manchester University Library

                      “A library? Not a luxury, but one of the necessities of Life.”  Henry Ward Beecher. 

               " I always imagined Paradise will be some kind of library.”   Jorge Luis Borges.   

These two quotes do begin to capture the often-reverential attitude many/most bibliophiles have towards the idea of a library. My present thoughts on libraries have been triggered by an item I saw online and this did remind me of one of the useful functions of the Internet; the often-random appearances of an interesting topic to remind the viewer of worlds other than her own.

A fondly-remembered book

As a child, I didn’t start using my local town library until I was attending the local grammar school from 1945; I did not come from a home where the idea of libraries-for-us existed although my mother, a poor working-class woman, venerated books and saved up fastidiously to buy me and my sisters wonderful books for birthdays and Christmases. One present from her with a title something like, ‘The Girls’ Book of Heroines’ and given to me when I was around 7 or 8, was still there in my tiny bedroom when I was 20, familiar and treasured! It was still with me when I lived in Bruges sixty years later, never read, but always there, comforting in its continuity of life and its connectedness to les temps passes.

The Library, Ephesus.

Public access to books is not a new idea. The Romans made scrolls in dry rooms available to patrons of the baths, and there were attempts in the Roman Empire to establish public libraries as early as the first century B.C. However, modern public libraries generally started with philanthropists and wealthy individuals funding private collections specifically accessible to some of the public, later evolving to receive government funding and becoming community hubs. Very early libraries like the one in Coventry in 1601, were often established in schools, and by scholars and clergymen in philanthropic gestures with little expectation of widespread use by the general public.

Chetham's Library, Manchester 1852.

The Museums Act of 1845 allowed for the attachment of free libraries to local museums as seen in places like Canterbury, Warrington and Salford but Commercial Libraries truly emerged in the mid-eighteenth century as booksellers began to rent out extra copies of books to audiences wider than the book-buying population. However, as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, City Libraries were born and began their lending services, increasingly accessible to members of the public who could read. Sometimes, these were Circulating Libraries, and often a Reading Room was conveniently available. The first major city to set up a free library under the auspices of the 1850 Public Libraries Act, was Manchester. Its first librarian, Edward Edwards, was joined by Charles Dickens and William Thackeray for its opening in 1852. This notable first public library did not just denote a forward-looking council as the decision of the local council had to be backed by most of the local population in a statutory local referendum, a poll. In the case of Manchester, the citizens’ vote was 3,962 to 40 in favour of adoption! But reassuringly, public subscription had already raised £13,000 for a public library in the city before the referendum took place. Meanwhile, a public meeting in Birmingham rejected the creation of a similar library by a large majority while in Sheffield only 3 percent of the citizenry could be bothered to turn out to make a similar refusal!

The 1850 Public Libraries Act allowed only a halfpenny of tax to run the library when established, which was, unsurprisingly, insufficient; councils were also denied the capacity to buy the books, it being assumed that donations would furnish the necessary volumes. This impossible state was soon reformed in 1855 with a law which reduced the population number [set at 10,000 people or more who could qualify to have a public library]; increased the maximum tax to a penny in the pound and gave councils the ability to buy books. By the following year [1856] eleven boroughs had set up public libraries. This positive state was somewhat leavened by the substantial number of rejections and in the second half of the nineteenth century, towns and cities across the U.K. witnessed vigorous campaigns over whether to establish a municipal lending library. Many places only gained libraries after several years of public disagreement, dispute and multiple polls. Opposition to public libraries chiefly came from those against increased taxation, which was naturally the majority; in 1881, in Edinburgh, men paraded through the streets with sandwich boards urging people to resist ‘this free library dodge and save yourselves from the burden of £6000 additional taxation.’  Poorer ratepayers often resented what they saw as middle-class institutions and in the 1880s, first the philosopher, Herbert Spencer, followed by the Liberty and Property Defence League, campaigned against the ‘socialistic’ principles of the library movement. Following a defeat in 1888, the pro-library set pursued their cherished library proposals for two more years before changing minds while the ratepayers of Edinburgh rejected the principle of a City Library twice before the extraordinary billionaire, Andrew Carnegie donated what was then a huge gift of £50,000 and won them round!

Bath's original Circulating Library
and Reading Room

Amusingly, Bath, that most refined of cities, produced an amazing litany of refusals to the City Library idea which in fact became a cause celebre in the city over virtually fifty years of library rejection. Passions were raised and sustained for, despite its notable high society of the wealthy and educated, it did have a large working-class population with a strong tradition of populist radicalism. The first attempt to start a library in Bath, failed in 1852; a second attempt in 1869 caused a large public meeting to reject the proposal, with high emotions  laced with insults, both for and against, on show. A local wealthy colonial administrator offered to fund an entire library in 1875 with the proviso that it would eventually be taken over by the council but in 1877, 1,808 voters rejected this generous offer with 1,644 ratepayers assenting. The tide was perhaps slowly turning! A fourth attempt in 1880 was made, with greater use made than formerly, of public meetings though class antagonisms were also on display; this latest effort was rejected 3857 to 2298 followed, astonishingly, by the refusal of an offer from Carnegie, no less, in 1906! Bath never did vote to favour its own municipal library. Debate was silenced when the embarrassed council alone decided to adopt the newly-passed Public Libraries Act which removed the requirement of a legal poll and a modest, tiny lending library, costing £2,366 opened in one room in the Victoria Art Gallery on 3 July 1924, virtually fifty years after this literary battle had begun.

Andrew Carnegie 1835-1919
By any measure, the hero of the 
Public Lending Library
movement.

Public lending libraries survived the nineteenth century of wars, economic conflict and class antagonism, triumphantly, as the authorities, and the middle class, acknowledged population growth with its increasingly available public education for the masses bringing accompanying higher literacy rates. Additional to these important social and educational developments, there grew the acknowledged desirability of a larger cultural input into intellectually barren lives and the increasing need for informed and literate members of society across all classes.                                     

 

Post Script

Angelo Rocca
Italian humanist, librarian and bishop
1545-1620

The lovely Pope died the other day, and as a happy atheist, I admired him hugely. So, as a passing tribute to a great and humble man, I must make mention of an Augustinian bishop by the name of Angelo Rocca who founded a library back in 1604 in Rome, making it the second oldest library in Italy to open to the public. Before that, only private libraries or convent libraries were accessible to the invited or initiated, but Angelo Rocca donated his own 20,000 manuscripts to the small existing Augustinian library, found a suitable building and provided an annuity for its upkeep. He wanted the library to be open to everyone regardless of their income or social standing and the uniqueness of the institution gave rise to an ever-increasing interest by the general public and its fame spread among scholars worldwide. Over the next centuries, the library collected books and manuscripts on the thoughts of St Augustine and the Augustinian Order and includes today works on the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation with particular reference to Italy.

 

Biblioteca Augustina, Rome.
Founded in 1604.