‘The Father and Mother of the Place’: Inhabiting London's Public Libraries, 1885–1940

It was resolved that Mr Henry J. Hewitt be appointed Librarian to the Chiswick Free Public Library at a salary of £90 per annum with rooms, gas and firing, such engagement being determined by a month's Notice [ sic ] on either side. ‘For the Free Use of the People’: The New Public Libraries in Late-Victorian London In 1885 there were two public libraries in London supported by rateable income; in 1890 there were twenty-one. By 1906 there were over 100 rate-assisted library buildings, affording ready access to novels, reference books, newspapers and journals for millions of men and women annually. These were cultural institutions that also acted as unofficial information centres, labour exchanges and education hubs, with librarians arranging reading circles, evening classes and lectures for city dwellers wishing to undertake informal learning programmes in their leisure time. The new public libraries had links with the mutual improvement culture but they were aimed at a more numerous and heterogeneous readership. At a time when further education establishments for non-elite students were still not widespread (see William Whyte's chapter on the new civic universities in this volume), the quasi-scholarly ideals and open-doors policy of the so-called ‘free’ libraries meant that these institutions were frequently portrayed as the universities or polytechnics of the people.