Public Libraries

Welcome to blog post number 8 on the subject of public lending libraries.
 
Writing historical fiction involves a lot of research which informs the story but is not necessarily included in it. This blog is for sharing some of the interesting and fun facts I discovered while researching my novel.

Sarah, the novel’s protagonist, meets her future husband at the library in 1897 when she is sixteen years old.
As she approached the library, she noticed the dark-haired young man loitering in the gardens. On two previous occasions, he had followed Mrs Kesby and her into the building. Without approaching, he had glanced at the shelves and left. His olive skin and black curly hair drew her attention. Thread a ring through his ear and he would look like a gypsy.
 
In normal circumstances, a young lady of Sarah’s social standing would be unlikely to meet a poor dockworker like Edwin Marsh. I came up with the library as one of the few places where this might be possible. In reality, it would have been highly unlikely since there was no free public lending library in Dover until 1934 (a shameful story which I will outline briefly below), and while there were plenty of libraries of various sorts in the town at the end of the 19th century, they were all charging a subscription fee. Although Edwin was highly motivated to educate himself and improve his prospects in life, his wages as a casual dockworker would not have allowed him to take out a library subscription. I therefore took a fiction writer’s license to invent a free public lending library in Dover in 1897.

Burning of the Library at Alexandria

Libraries have, of course, existed since ancient times. One early example is the famous library in Alexandria built in the third century BC which Julius Caesar accidentally set fire to in 45BC. Before the invention of the printing press, books were transcribed by hand, often by monks. Since this was a laborious process, books were rare and very expensive. Libraries were private collections, often closely guarded with books kept chained to the shelves or under lock and key. Access was limited to a select few.

Medieval Book of Hours

Books chained to shelves

​The first public libraries in the UK which allowed access to the general public were established in the first half of the seventeenth century. Possibly the earliest was one in the Free Grammar School in Coventry in 1601. The most famous is the Cheltham Library which opened in Manchester in 1653. It is named after its founder, Humphrey Cheltham, a textile merchant, who left money in his will for the purchase of the building. It currently houses over 100,000 volumes.

Cheltham Library, Manchester

Circulating Libraries

Sarah is a keen reader, especially of romantic novels which her guardian Mrs Kesby distains.
She uncurled herself, hoping Mrs Kesby did not notice the title of her library book, A Gentleman’s Honour, a most unsuitable romance. Written with the specific intention of filling a young woman’s head with misleading notions of romantic love and encouraging moral laxity, it made for delightful reading.
Rather than a public lending library, it is much more likely that Sarah would have obtained such reading material from a circulating library, which were well established in Britain by the 19th century and popular among well-to do ladies. They were run as businesses, charging a subscription fee, usually annual, for the loan of books. But they offered much more: a place for women with enough wealth and leisure time to meet each other, gossip, play games and purchase a variety of expensive goods.

Many circulating libraries were also publishing houses and their output had a significant effect on the development of the novel. The novel was viewed with much suspicion by the establishment, particularly in the hands of women, as it was thought to encourage idleness and moral laxity. The circulating libraries’ stock consisted mostly of novels. Their championing of female authors and the gothic novel turned reading into a popular pastime for women in the Victorian era.

Free Public Lending Libraries

​The impetus for creating public lending libraries with no cost to the borrower came as a result of the industrial revolution. The middle classes worried that the working class who now congregated in towns and cities for work were passing their small amount of leisure time in unsuitable activities, namely drinking and fighting.

Charles Dickens (Getty Images)

The Public Libraries Act of 1850 allowed municipal boroughs to use taxes of half a penny in the pound to establish the buildings and staffing for public libraries. Books were not included! Those had to be acquired by philanthropic donation. In September 1852, Manchester was the first local authority to open a public lending and reference library under the act. Charles Dickens spoke at the opening ceremony expressing “the earnest hope that the books thus made available will provide a source of pleasure and improvement in the cottages, the garrets, and the cellars of the poorest of our people”.
In 1855 the tax rate that boroughs could charge for libraries was increased to one penny in the pound, and by 1900 there were 295 public libraries across Britain, though many of them were heavily dependent on donations from philanthropists like Henry Tate and Andrew Carnegie. The Public Libraries Act of 1919 further reformed the system by giving the responsibility for libraries to the county councils.
The response from the public towards free access public libraries was generally enthusiastic but they also had their detractors. Some saw them as unhygienic. When an outbreak of small pox spread through Sheffield in 1887, the finger of blame pointed at the public libraries for spreading the disease. The Sheffield Evening Telegraph for 11th November 1887 wrote: ‘the Sheffield people must patiently submit to a temporary deprivation of their light literature, and, what is more, must be prepared for similar inconvenience whenever any zymotic disease takes the shape of an epidemic. Perhaps, the sooner the circulating libraries of Sheffield are closed, the better will it be for all concerned.’

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The scandal of Dover Public Library's delayed opening

Dover Public Library 1952 - 2003

The first municipal public library in Dover only opened in 1935, eighty-five years after the Public Libraries Act. The queues the length of the street for the opening, and the fact that almost 20,000 books were borrowed in the first fortnight attest to how much the people of Dover wanted this facility. Why, then, did it take the council so long to establish one?
It seems that during those eighty-five years, there were always vociferous and influential council members arguing that Dover had no need of a public library as ‘the affluent were well provided for and the remainder of the town’s population were too ignorant to learn to read’. 1
There were, indeed, plenty of libraries and reading rooms in Dover—around eighty in 1886—for those who could afford to use them. The museum founded by the Dover Philosophical Institute in 1836 opened a reading room on the upper floor of the Market Hall, but it was for members of the institute only. Other privately run libraries demanded a subscription fee. In other words the upper and  middle classes, to which most of the councillors belonged, were well provided for. They took the position that ‘the town did not need a public library as those who wanted to read could belong to a private library and those who did not were obviously not interested in gaining knowledge’. 2

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Market Hall, Dover, 1846, which housed the museum on the top floor

John Bavington Jones, owner of the Dover Express

​Towards the end of the 19th century, pressure on the Dover council to open a free public library ratcheted up. A resolution was put forward on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce backed by the Dover Express newspaper. Objectors claimed the Chamber of Commerce was foisting a library on Dover ratepayers. A bookshop owner offered a large collection of books as a gift for a library opened in accordance with the Libraries Act, but the council declined the gift.
 
In 1902, a prominent Dover citizen applied to the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie for a grant to open a public library. He agreed to donate £10,000 on condition the council adopted the Libraries Act and provided a suitable building. The council rejected the offer. They were unwilling to dedicate taxes at the rate of a penny in the pound when plenty of libraries existed for those willing to pay a subscription. Councillor William Burkett argued that ‘a free library was a luxury that the ratepayers of Dover could ill-afford and that the ratepayers already contributed 1 penny in the pound towards elementary education, which many saw as a waste.’ 3
The Dover council’s attitude that people should pay if they wanted to read prevailed throughout the early part of the 20th century. Gradually, however, an increasing number of the town’s middle class became concerned at the lack of a public library. John Bavington Jones, owner of the Dover Express newspaper, stated: ‘Although it has to be recorded that Dover of to-day does not possess a centre of enlightenment, public opinion appears to be growing in favour of spending public money in a moderate way, not only for mental recreation, but for liberally furnishing the minds of citizens with information on public affairs to enable them to rightly exercise the duties of citizenship.’

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Frederick Morecroft, Mayor of Dover

Fred Whitehouse, headmaster of the Dover Boys' County School

​During the economic depression of the 1930s when unemployment reached its height and soup kitchens in Dover were doling out 1500 meals a week, several prominent Dovorians began taking concerted action on the library issue. Among them were the mayor, Frederick Morecroft, the headmaster of the Boys’ County School, Fred Whitehouse, and Lady Violet Astor, the wife of Dover’s MP. The Mayor set up a library committee, chaired by himself, and by 1934 the council had approved the establishment of a public library. The library, stocked with 7,600 books at a capital cost of £7000 opened on 13th March 1935. In the fortnight leading up to its opening, over 900 people had registered as readers. A year later, the long-overdue facility was being used by 29.5% of the population, compared to the national average of 16.7%.

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Lady Violet Astor

Footnotes:
1,2,3 Lorraine Sencicle, The Dover Historian.
 
Sources:
The Social Historian: Public Lending Libraries by Barabara J Starmans
​Historic England: The English Public Library 1850-1939 by Authors: Simon Taylor, Matthew Whitfield and Susie Barson
Public Libraries in the UK – History and Values by David McMenemy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
The Dover Historian - A collection of historical articles from the town of Dover, England, by Lorraine Sencicle