Reading public
As UK public libraries weather funding cuts, Amanda Randall reveals how Britain became a nation of book borrowers
The public library has a long-established place in history as a centre of learning, aspiration and self-improvement in the UK. It represents the joy of allowing curiosity to take unexpected routes and to find things out for oneself.
Libraries were often imposing landmarks in towns and cities all over the UK. These ‘palaces of culture’ were sometimes housed with art galleries, museums and public baths, which underlined their importance in civic life. The public library was a landmark and even if your ancestors weren’t avid readers it’s very likely to have featured in their lives in some way, as a place to meet friends, to work, or to discover the world’s treasures. With the future of public libraries now so precarious, it’s a good time to remember the important role they played in our ancestors’ education and aspirations.
The movement towards a free library service has connections with many elements of British history – from the development of literacy and education reform, to the explosive growth of towns throughout the Industrial Revolution, changes in local government administration, the birth of mass entertainment, burgeoning industrial
wealth and fluctuations in the economy. The free library service grew out of the mid-19th century reform agenda, which strove to regulate working conditions, public health and education for children and adults, and included the Public Libraries Act of 1850.
At the same time, among working people and some of their employers, book collections available to borrow (usually for a fee) were reasonably commonplace in mining communities, at mechanics’ institutes and even within some factories. People read for escapism and enjoyment as much as for self-improvement. Evening classes gave working men the chance to read about and debate philosophy, literature, law, natural science and morality.
While literacy levels rose and leisure time increased, buying books remained out of reach for most family budgets, so the movement towards free public libraries presented reformers and workers with the chance to fulfil their ambitions and needs.
Circulating libraries
The precursors to public libraries were the circulating libraries. Prior to streamlined mechanisation in publishing, books were prohibitively expensive for anyone except the very wealthy. However, reading for
pleasure was becoming a more popular pursuit in most ranks of society. How could publishers increase their business if few people could afford books? One solution was the circulating library, which dates back to at least the 18th century in Britain.
By 1800, around 1,000 such businesses loaned books to readers for a specified time, paid for by subscription. The biggest was the Minerva Press Circulating Library in London, which stocked around 20,000 titles. At the other end of the scale, one circulating library in Derby offered just 200 titles, but most businesses held around 5,000 books. It was a growing market; by 1770 some publishers sold up to 40 per cent of their output to circulating libraries and some circulating libraries also became publishers.
Minerva Press advertised widely and established a franchise to provide stock to provincial libraries, the result being that smaller communities outside cities benefited from access to newly published books. Circulating libraries attached to publishing houses were twice as likely to offer works by female authors, which in turn encouraged women to read more widely.
By the early 19th century, circulating libraries were well-established. They provided reasonably cheap access for those with some disposable income to suitable literature and they became “fashionable daytime lounges where ladies and others could see and be seen, where raffles were held, and games played, and where expensive merchandise could be purchased”, according to literary historian Lee Erickson.
In the Victorian period, the best known were Mudie’s Select Library (1842-1937) and WH Smith & Son (1860-1961). Mudie’s specialised in titles promoting Victorian morals, while WH Smith established book stalls at railway stations and used the rail network to distribute books. Boot’s Booklovers’ Library (1900-1966) may well feature in stories of your relatives’ past, especially during the Second World War, when membership topped one million.
Circulating libraries survived into the mid-20th century, but their death knell was sounded by investment in free public libraries and the availability of cheap books.
Well-educated workers
A few libraries for poorer people ran along similar lines to the circulating libraries. In Scotland at least 22 working class libraries
existed in the Lowlands by 1822. These charged an annual subscription of, at most, 6s and were governed democratically.
Scottish literacy levels in the mid-18th century were high among craftsmen, particularly weavers who needed to be literate for work. Mining companies also wanted an educated workforce. Weavers and lead miners were well paid and worked relatively short hours. The culture within these trades of friendly society activity, such as free lectures and mutual improvement, called for an affordable subscription library. Education complemented the strong drive for independence among these workers. Few similar libraries existed in England until later in the 19th century, although mining communities established libraries as part of their trade institutes.
The mechanics’ institutes date from 1825 and were founded by industrialists who understood that a well-educated workforce would benefit business. The Victorian drive for selfimprovement came not only from working-class people seeking to educate themselves, but also from social reformers determined to purge the curses of drink and immorality. It was hoped that the pursuit of reading would provide an alternative to drink or gambling. The mid-19th century was a time of significant reform movements, such as Chartism, which promoted workingclass adult education among its goals.
One of the men behind the Public Library Act 1850 was Edward Edwards. A Chartist and former bricklayer, Edwards rose through the ranks to briefly become chief librarian at Manchester, one of the earliest public libraries, before he was dismissed in 1858 for his radical opinions.
Some local authorities had already embraced the idea of free public libraries. Following the Museums Act of 1845, free libraries were attached to civic museums in Warrington, Canterbury and Salford.
Free for all
The 1850 Public Libraries Act marked the dawn of what we know as the free public library service in England. The main provisions of the Act gave boroughs with more than 10,000 inhabitants the power to finance public libraries from the rates. No more than half a penny in the pound
could be levied for this purpose, and the money couldn’t be used to buy books. Borough councils were obliged to gain the agreement by referendum of two-thirds of local rate payers to adopting the Act. Scotland and Ireland came in under an amendment in 1853. Two years later the levy increased to 1d in the pound, which could then be used to fund book buying. Winchester was the first town to open a new library under the Act in 1851, albeit in an existing building. The first new building funded under the Act was in Norwich, where the library, museum and art school opened in 1857. But the road to a free public service was not smooth. There was political opposition to increasing the rate payer’s financial burden and to improving education for working-class people. Some feared that rates could be used to fund other enterprises.
The Act’s provisions were slow to be implemented. In Wolverhampton, a failed attempt to persuade rate payers to adopt the Act in 1859 led to the matter being shelved for a decade. In any case, once an adoption attempt had failed, another couldn’t be made for a year. But the much smaller nearby Kidderminster (population 9,000) embraced it, opening a public library of 10,000 volumes in 1855, financed entirely by the 1/2d rate. By 1867, only 27 authorities had adopted library legislation. Despite evident commitment to the aims of the Act, the penny rate limited local authorities’ ability to fund library buildings, especially in poorer areas with low-rated properties.
The pace picked up in the 1880s following the Elementary Education Act 1870 and amid rising national excitement generated by Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887 – a year that saw the establishment of 77 libraries. During the 1880s and 1890s, a new pattern emerged of organised private philanthropy, supported by wealthy entrepreneurs. For example, sugar millionaire Sir Henry Tate (18191899) gave tens of thousands of pounds to set up libraries in London, as well as money to initiate what became the Tate Gallery. John Passmore Edwards (1823-1911), a champion of the working class, funded 24 libraries in London, the home counties and Cornwall, as well as around 45 hospitals, schools, galleries and convalescent homes.
Perhaps the most enduring name in library philanthropy was Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), a Scottish-
Winchester was the first town to open a new library under the Act in 1853
American industrialist who gave a library to his home city of Dunfermline in 1883. The first library bearing the name Carnegie opened in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in 1904 and heralded a wave of Carnegie Free Libraries across the country. He established the Carnegie Trust in 1913, which was committed to the provision of free libraries and adult education. As a result of the change in public funding in 1919, donations to libraries declined, but the Carnegie Trust remained important in lobbying on wider matters, such as public literacy.
By 1900, Britain boasted 295 public libraries and by 1914, 62 per cent of the English population lived in a library authority area. The lack of facilities in rural communities was highlighted by the Carnegie Trust’s Adams Report in 1915, a situation that was addressed by the Public Libraries Act 1919, which removed the penny rate restriction and freed local authorities to fund libraries from central budgets. The Act ushered in an era of major expansion creating the comprehensive, free library service we know today.
The reading public
In most Victorian libraries, books were stored in closed stacks and readers had to request titles from the librarian. The opportunity to browse at will came as library architecture changed, from the stately presence of the imposing civic building in town centres to the smaller branch libraries in suburbs or the modern open spaces of the inter-war years. Until then a central reading room was typical, with separate rooms for ladies to read magazines and (usually middle class) men to study, smoke or play games. Working men frequented the newspaper room and the children’s room encouraged an interest in culture from an early age.
Before the First World War, Whitechapel Public Library provided a haven from slum life for the children of Jewish migrants. Using the library to do homework, it also became a meeting place for boys and girls, chatting and helping each other with school work, sometimes noisily – much to the annoyance of the librarian.
The novelist Marie Corelli enjoyed enormous success until the First World War, but she didn’t approve of popular education and railed against schools. She found public libraries distasteful claiming that “common people” made the books dirty and “infested them with disease” because they never washed. The novelist VS Pritchett felt so insulted by her words that he stormed off to visit his public library for the first time and sat down to write some “hard thoughts about Marie Corelli”.
The Second World War saw a spike in library usage, especially among working class readers. Restrictions on printed material and a thirst for culture drove a great interest in poetry, literature and also light fiction. In 1940, the library in working-class Fulham noted the popularity of light fiction but also in more serious works by Aldous Huxley, Emile Zola and Victor Hugo. Bristol libraries reported in 1944 that their most popular authors were Hugh Walpole, Dickens, Hardy, Jane Austen and HG Wells, whereas books by DH Lawrence and Virginia Woolf attracted few borrowers.