Engines of literature: libraries in an era of expansion and transition

Abstract

Viewing the multiplicity of libraries of all types founded between the end of the Napoleonic wars and the Public Libraries Act of 1850, it is possible to receive a clear impression of a noble concept – education for all classes through access to literary knowledge – gathering momentum, culminating inevitably in parliamentary action. Library historians regard the 1850 Act as a watershed, and yet popular support was singularly lacking. Twenty years on, only twenty-nine libraries had opened in England under the Acts, with two in Scotland and one each in Ireland and Wales. Ratepayers did not besiege their town halls demanding to be taxed for libraries but often protested against. As late as 1871 Leicester council started a public library under the Museums, rather than the Libraries, Act, to avoid defeat at a public meeting. The Act was not a government-sponsored measure. The Liberal prime minister, Lord John Russell, had previously opposed public libraries when included in the failed Public Institutions Bill of 1835. He believed that private enterprise encouraged keen managers of educational institutions, whereas opposition to taxation for rate-supported libraries would produce an apathetic public and indifferent management. Nevertheless government recognised, albeit unenthusiastically, the need to stimulate the educational and information needs of the population, if through local rather than national taxation; their aim was to fight drunkenness and sedition. At the same time, the government became more willing to make money available, if only paltry sums, towards library provision for its own needs, as in departmental libraries, and for its own servants, willing or not, such as soldiers, sailors and convicts, many of whom were barely literate.

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