Manchester Central Library is the headquarters of the
city's library and information service in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, England. Facing
St Peter's Square, it was designed by
E. Vincent Harris and constructed between 1930 and 1934. The form of the building, a columned portico attached to a
rotunda domed structure, is loosely derived from the
Pantheon, Rome
The Pantheon (, ; la, Pantheum,Although the spelling ''Pantheon'' is standard in English, only ''Pantheum'' is found in classical Latin; see, for example, Pliny, '' Natural History'36.38 "Agrippas Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis". Se ...
. At its opening, one critic wrote, "This is the sort of thing which persuades one to believe in the perennial applicability of the Classical canon".
The library building is grade II*
listed
Listed may refer to:
* Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm
* Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic
* Endangered species in biology
* Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...
. A four-year project to renovate and refurbish the library commenced in 2010. Central Library re-opened on 22 March 2014.
History
Background
Manchester was the first local authority to provide a public lending and reference library after the passing of the
Public Libraries Act 1850
The Public Libraries Act 1850 (13 & 14 Vict c.65) was an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament which first gave local boroughs the power to establish free public libraries. The Act was the first legislative step in the creation of an enduring natio ...
. The
Manchester Free Library The Manchester Free Library opened on 5 September 1852 in Manchester, England. It was the first public library in England to be set up under the provisions of the Public Libraries Act 1850, which allowed local authorities to impose a local tax of ...
opened at Campfield in September 1852 at a ceremony attended by
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
.
When the Campfield premises were declared to be unsafe in 1877, the library was moved to the old Town Hall in King Street. The library moved again to what is now
Piccadilly Gardens
Piccadilly Gardens is a green space in Manchester city centre, England, on the edge of the Northern Quarter.
It takes its name from the adjacent street, Piccadilly, which runs across the city centre from Market Street to London Road. The ga ...
, to the former outpatients wing of
Manchester Royal Infirmary
Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) is a large NHS teaching hospital in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England. Founded by Charles White in 1752 as part of the voluntary hospital movement of the 18th century, it is now a major regional and nati ...
and an old
YMCA
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...
hut in 1912.
In 1926 the city council held a competition to design an extension to the town hall and a central library.
E. Vincent Harris was selected to design both buildings. His circular design for the library, reminiscent of the
Pantheon
Pantheon may refer to:
* Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building
Arts and entertainment Comics
*Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization
* ''Pantheon'' (Lone S ...
in Rome, was based on libraries in America. The library's foundation stone was laid on 6 May 1930 by the Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.
The library was officially opened by
King George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.
Born during the reign of his grandmother Que ...
on 17 July 1934 after he had laid the foundation stone for the
Town Hall Extension.
![Manchester Central Library 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Manchester_Central_Library_2.jpg)
In 1934 the Blind Collection from Deansgate and the Commercial Library from the
Royal Exchange were moved to the library. The Chinese Library Service was set up in 1968.
Opening
Central Library opened in 1934 to much fanfare. Singer-songwriter
Ewan MacColl
James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989), better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was a folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the ...
reminisced on the opening: "The new Central Library which replaced the chicken house was an imposing circular structure with an enormous reading room, a small theatre and carrels where serious students could carry on their research without interruption. The portico of the magnificent edifice quickly became a popular rendezvous and "Meet you at the Ref" became a familiar phrase on the lips of students, lovers and unemployed youths. I was there on the opening day and on many days thereafter; the Ref played an important part in my life for I made many friends there."
The library was declared open by King George V on 17 July 1934.
George V declared to the crowd: "In the splendid building which I am about to open, the largest library in this country provided by a local authority, the Corporation have ensured for the inhabitants of the city magnificent opportunities for further education and for the pleasant use of leisure."
An employee at the library who was present on opening day said: "When it was being built the public were very intrigued about its final appearance – they were used to rectangular buildings and the shape of the girders used seemed to make little sense. I remember families coming in first to "gawp"... Under the portico became a favourite trysting place. In all, the shape of the building was its best advertisement and it was never necessary to put a notice 'Public Library' on the outside."
Renovation
Reports emerged in 2008 that the Central Library needed essential renovation to repair and modernise its facilities.
The library faced
asbestos
Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...
problems and needed work to maintain its 'structural integrity'.
The Central Library closed from 2010 to 2014 for refurbishment and expansion. During the closure its collections were stored in the
Winsford Rock Salt Mine
Winsford is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, on the River Weaver south of Northwich and west of Middlewich. It grew around ...
; some of the books in the stack joined collections at
Greater Manchester County Record Office
The Greater Manchester County Record Office (GMCRO) is an archive of primary materials relating to the heritage of Greater Manchester, in North West England; it is located in Manchester city centre, in Archives + in Manchester's Central Librar ...
. Some of its services were available at a temporary location nearby. During renovation, a temporary community library for the city centre was established on
Deansgate
Deansgate is a main road (part of the A56) through Manchester City Centre, England. It runs roughly north–south in a near straight route through the western part of the city centre and is the longest road in the city centre at over one mile ...
. Central Library re-opened on 22 March 2014 after a £40 million re-design. The project delivered by
Laing O'Rourke
Laing O'Rourke is a multinational construction company headquartered in Dartford, England. It was founded in 1978 by Ray O'Rourke. It is the largest privately owned construction company in the United Kingdom.
History
The company was founded by ...
won the
Construction News ''Construction News'' is a monthly publication, plus digital and events services, primarily targeting the United Kingdom construction industry.
History Early history
The magazine was first published as ''Labour News'' on 30 August 1871, having be ...
Judges Supreme Award in June 2015. It was described as an almost impossibly complex project completed on schedule and within budget.
The indoor plan is now very different. What was the theatre in the basement is now part of the library. A wall was knocked through, making an indoor connection between the library and
Manchester Town Hall
Manchester Town Hall is a Victorian, Neo-gothic municipal building in Manchester, England. It is the ceremonial headquarters of Manchester City Council and houses a number of local government departments. The building faces Albert Square to th ...
. The Library Theatre Company will move to their new theatre at
HOME (Manchester)
HOME is an arts centre in Manchester, a central part of the city’s artistic ecology, and an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation. Since opening in 2015, HOME has built a reputation for high-quality, adventurous cultural progra ...
in May 2015.
Architecture
![Manchester Central Library Ceiling - panoramio](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Manchester_Central_Library_Ceiling_-_panoramio.jpg)
Designed by architect Vincent Harris, the striking rotunda form of the library was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. Like its 2nd-century model, the library is a round building fronted by a large two-storey
portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...
which forms the main entrance on St Peter's Square, and is surrounded by five bays of
Corinthian columns
The Corinthian order (Greek: Κορινθιακός ρυθμός, Latin: ''Ordo Corinthius'') is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order w ...
. Around the second and third floors is a
Tuscan colonnade
In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...
, topped by a band of unrelieved
Portland stone
Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building sto ...
.
The pitched leaded roof appears from street level to be a dome, but this is only a surrounding roof. The dome that can be seen from within the Great Hall lies within this roof, and cannot be seen from the ground.
On the first floor is the Great Hall, a large reading room topped by a dome. Much of the original furniture designed by the architect can be seen on this floor. Around the rim of the dome is an inscription from the
Book of Proverbs
The Book of Proverbs ( he, מִשְלֵי, , "Proverbs (of Solomon)") is a book in the third section (called Ketuvim) of the Hebrew Bible and a book of the Christian Old Testament. When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different ...
in the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
:
In former years the dome's
acoustics
Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician ...
caused an
echo
In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the list ...
problem, which repeated several times any short noise made in the room. Adding sound-absorbing material reduced this effect.
The Shakespeare Hall is an ornate chamber displaying local heraldry and with large
stained glass
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
windows. The central window was designed by
Robert Anning Bell
Robert Anning Bell (14 April 1863 – 27 November 1933) was an English artist and designer.
Early life
Robert Anning Bell was born in London on 14 April 1863, the son of Robert George Bell, a cheesemonger, and Mary Charlotte Knight. He studied ...
and depicts
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
and scenes from his plays. Two side windows designed by
George Kruger Gray
George Edward Kruger Gray (25 December 1880 – 2 May 1943) was an English artist, best remembered for his designs of coinage and stained glass windows.
Personal life
Kruger was born in 1880 at 126 Kensington Park Road, London, the son of a Jer ...
depict the
coats of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its wh ...
of the City of Manchester, the
University of Manchester
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
, and the
County and Duchy of Lancaster. The windows were a memorial bequest to the library by Rosa E. Grindon (1848–1923), the widow of Manchester botanist
Leo Grindon
Leopold Hartley Grindon (28 March 1818 – 20 November 1904) was an English educator and botanist, and a pioneer in adult education. His plant collection and botanical drawings and writings formed a major asset of the herbarium at Manchester M ...
.
The ceiling decorations include the arms and crests of the Duchy of Lancaster, the
See of York
The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers the ...
, the
See of Manchester, the City of Manchester, and
Lancashire County Council
Lancashire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire, England. It consists of 84 councillors. Since the 2017 election, the council has been under Conservative control.
Prior to the 2009 La ...
. The walls of Shakespeare Hall are covered with
Hopton Wood stone
Hopton Wood stone (sometimes Hopton-Wood stone or Hoptonwood stone) is a type of limestone quarried west of Middleton-by-Wirksworth, Derbyshire, England. Described as "very fine, almost like marble" and as "England’s premier
decorative stone" ...
quarried in
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
. On the walls are the arms of The
Manchester Grammar School
The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) in Manchester, England, is the largest independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1515 as a Grammar school#free tuition, free grammar school next to Manchester C ...
, Manchester University, the
Manchester Regiment
The Manchester Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1958. The regiment was created during the 1881 Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 63rd (West Suffolk) Regiment of Foot and the 96th ...
,
Humphrey Chetham
Humphrey Chetham (10 July 1580 – 1653) was an English textile merchant, financier and philanthropist, responsible for the creation of Chetham's Hospital and Chetham's Library, the oldest public library in the English-speaking world.Crosb ...
, the Overseers of the Township, England, St. George, St. Mary (patron saint of Manchester), and over the memorial window, Shakespeare.
On the left landing is a white
marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
statue, ''the Reading Girl'' by the Italian sculptor Giovanni Ciniselli. It was bought by the industrialist and promoter of the
Manchester Ship Canal
The Manchester Ship Canal is a inland waterway in the North West of England linking Manchester to the Irish Sea. Starting at the Mersey Estuary at Eastham, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, it generally follows the original routes of the river ...
,
Daniel Adamson
Daniel Adamson (30 April 1820 – 13 January 1890) was an English engineer who became a successful manufacturer of boilers and was the driving force behind the inception of the Manchester Ship Canal project during the 1880s.
Early life
Adamson ...
. The statue was presented to the library by his grandchildren, the Parkyn family, in 1938.
Collections
![Manchester Central Library 2014 re-opening Lending Library 7944c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Manchester_Central_Library_2014_re-opening_Lending_Library_7944c.JPG)
It is the second largest public lending library in Britain, after the
Library of Birmingham
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 vir ...
.
Beneath the Great Hall were four floors of steel book stacks providing 35 miles of shelving which accommodated one million books:
video Those floors were only accessible to employees and were environmentally controlled to protect books, many of which are old and fragile.
The upper two stack floors occupied all the area under the dome. The fourth level, the Archive unit, was in the basement of the building. The lower two stack floors were smaller because the basement theatre took some of that area. In 2011 when the library closed for the alterations, there were 3600 stack columns supporting approximately 45,000 shelves; those columns were rooted in the sandstone rock underneath and supported the Great Hall's reinforced concrete floor. Placed end to end, those shelves would have covered over . The total floor area was about .
After the 2010–2014 alterations, many of the former stack books (except rare or valuable or fragile books) are on public shelves.
The library collections include over 30
incunabula
In the history of printing, an incunable or incunabulum (plural incunables or incunabula, respectively), is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. Incunabula were pro ...
(books published before 1500) and many first and early editions of major works. The special collections include:
* '
The Gaskell Collection'' – works by
Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...
, one of the most important writers to have lived and worked in the city
* The Theatre Collection – a record of the history of
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
in Manchester
*The Henry Watson Music library – one of the largest public library collections of
sheet music
Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses List of musical symbols, musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chord (music), chords of a song or instrumental Musical composition, musical piece. Like ...
, named after the Mancunian musician and composer Dr
Henry Watson (1846-1911) who bequeathed his collection to the library. It was officially opened in 1947 by
Sir John Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli ( Giovanni Battista Barbirolli; 2 December 189929 July 1970) was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 194 ...
.
* The Newman Flower Collection of Handel Manuscripts – acquired from the estate of Sir
Newman Flower
Sir Walter Newman Flower (8 July 1879 – 12 March 1964) was an English publisher and author. He transformed the fortunes of the publishing house Orion Publishing Group, Cassell & Co, and later became its proprietor. As an author, he published stu ...
by the Henry Watson Music library in 1965. This library of rare manuscripts had originally been collected by
Charles Jennens
Charles Jennens (1700 – 20 November 1773) was an English landowner and patron of the arts. As a friend of Handel, he helped author the libretti of several of his oratorios, most notably ''Messiah''.
Life
Jennens was brought up at Gopsall H ...
, a close friend of
George Frederic Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque music, Baroque composer well known for his opera#Baroque era, operas, oratorios, anthems, concerto grosso, concerti grossi, ...
, and was later held in the collection of the
Earl of Aylesford
Earl of Aylesford, in the County of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1714 for the lawyer and politician Heneage Finch, 1st Baron Guernsey. He had already been created Baron Guernsey in the Peerage of England in ...
. It contains works by Handel, as well as items of Italian music from the early 18th century, including concerto partbooks of ''
the Four Seasons'' by
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...
. Notably, the collection also includes a number of previously unknown violin sonatas by Vivaldi, autographed by the composer, which are now known as ''The Manchester Sonatas''.
Library Theatre
The Library Theatre occupied much of the basement of Manchester Central Library and was the home of the Library Theatre Company, a Manchester City Council service. It was built in 1934 as a lecture theatre, and since 1952 had been used by the Library Theatre Company. After the 2011–2014 alterations its area is now part of the library. A
new theatre opened on First Street in partnership with
Cornerhouse
Cornerhouse was a centre for cinema and the contemporary visual arts, located next to Oxford Road Station on Oxford Street, Manchester, England, which was active from 1985–2015. It had three floors of art galleries, three cinemas, a booksho ...
, Manchester in 2015.
Famous users
Anthony Burgess
John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer.
Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his Utopian and dystopian fiction, d ...
, the author who wrote the novel ''
A Clockwork Orange
''A Clockwork Orange'' may refer to:
* ''A Clockwork Orange'' (novel), a 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess
** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (film), a 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel
*** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (soundtrack), the film ...
'', was a regular visitor to the library during his school days. In a volume of his autobiography, ''
Little Wilson and Big God
''Little Wilson and Big God'', volume I of Anthony Burgess's autobiography, was first published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (established 1949), often shortened to W&N or Weidenfeld, is a British publisher of fiction ...
'' (1987) he recounted his visit to the index system, then in temporary accommodation in Piccadilly, Manchester, where he met an older woman who took him to her flat in Ardwick where she seduced him (p. 121, 1988 Penguin ed.)
Statistics
In 1968 it was recorded that the adult lending stock was 895,000, the adult reference stock 638,200, the junior stock 114,600, a total of nearly one and two thirds of a million volumes. There were about 2,000 reading places and an estimated 10,000 people visited the library each day. There were subscriptions to 3,000 periodicals.
[Cotton, G. B. (1971) "Public libraries in the North West", in: ''Libraries in the North West: special issue of "North Western Newsletter" ''. Manchester: Library Association (North Western Branch); p. 6]
See also
*
Grade II* listed buildings in Greater Manchester
There are 236 Grade II* listed buildings in Greater Manchester, England. In the United Kingdom, the term listed building refers to a building or other structure officially designated as being of special architectural, historical or cultural ...
*
Listed buildings in Manchester-M2
Manchester is a city in Northwest England. The M2 postcode area of the city includes part of the city centre, including the Central Retail District. The postcode area contains 143 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritag ...
*
John Rylands Library
The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a late-Victorian neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Enriquet ...
References
External links
Great Hall, Manchester Central Library Manchester Archives+Central Library homepageHistory of Manchester Central LibraryLocal image collection– contains historical photographs of the library
The Library Theatre
{{Authority control
Library buildings completed in 1934
Public libraries in Greater Manchester
Grade II* listed buildings in Manchester
Libraries in Manchester
Theatres in Manchester
Buildings by Vincent Harris
1934 establishments in England