The Guildhall Library is a public

reference library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

specialising in subjects relevant to London. It is administered by the

Corporation of London The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the municipal governing body of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United King ...

, the government of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

, which is the historical heart of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England. The library was founded in the 1420s under the terms of the will of Lord Mayor Dick Whittington. Many volumes in store rooms were lost due to bombing in World War Two. The library was originally housed in the Old Library at the

Guildhall A guildhall, also known as a "guild hall" or "guild house", is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commonly become town halls and in som ...

, and moved to modern premises elsewhere in the Guildhall complex in the 1970s.

Services

The library is a public reference library and specialises in subjects relevant to London. The collection has its greatest depth on topics specifically concerned with the

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

, but also contains a great deal of material on the other parts of metropolitan London. It is divided into three main sections: printed books; manuscripts; and prints, maps and drawings. The material dates from the eleventh century onwards.

Notable librarians

William Herbert was elected librarian of the Guildhall Library, which had been recently re-established by the Corporation of London, in 1828. He prepared a second edition of the catalogue in 1840, and retired in 1845. David Pearson was the Director of Libraries, Archives in the City of London between 2009 and early 2017. His brief also included

London Metropolitan Archives The London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) is the principal local government archive repository for the Greater London area, including the City of London: it is the largest county record office in the United Kingdom. It was established under its pr ...

, City Business Library and

Guildhall Art Gallery The Guildhall Art Gallery houses the art collection of the City of London, England. The museum is located in the Moorgate area of the City of London. It is a stone building in a semi-Gothic style intended to be sympathetic to the historic Guild ...

Holdings

;Books There are specialist book collections on the following subjects: *London and its history *Local history *Family history *English law *Parliamentary material *Wine and food *Clocks and clockmakers (incorporating also the libraries of the

Worshipful Company of Clockmakers The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers was established under a royal charter granted by King Charles I in 1631. It ranks sixty-first among the livery companies of the City of London, and comes under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council. The c ...

and of the

Antiquarian Horological Society The Antiquarian Horological Society, abbreviated to AHS, is the UK-based learned society for scholars and enthusiasts of horology. Its administrative office is at 4 Lovat Lane, a listed building close to the Monument, in the City of London. In earl ...

) *Business history *Marine history *Several smaller collections The local history collections are not restricted to London but cover the whole of the British Isles. In addition to complete sets of the

Victoria County History The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History or the VCH, is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of En ...

of England volumes and

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

's Buildings of England, the library holds a collection of county, town and village histories, and also holds journals and other publications of many local history and archaeological societies. The combination of the libraries of the Antiquarian Horological Society, the Clockmakers' Company and the Corporation's own holdings means the Guildhall offers a horological reference collection of international standing.

References

External links

Guildhall Library section of the City of London's siteCollage database of images from the City of London's collections
{{Authority control Libraries in the City of London Public libraries in London

Services

Notable librarians

Holdings

See also

References

External links