Passmore Edwards District Public Library 6904310859

Clement Attlee statue - Limehouse library

Limehouse Public Library is a historical building in Limehouse,

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 ...

, formerly a

public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil service, civil servants. There are ...

. The library was first proposed for construction in 1888, but the required finances could not be raised until 1900 when John Passmore Edwards was approached for assistance. He subscribed a sum of £5,000 and he subsequently laid the foundation stone on 19 October that year. The library was opened to the public in November 1901 by the mayor of Stepney. More recently usage of the Grade II listed building fell, and it eventually closed in 2003. It is currently boarded up to prevent vandalism. The local Tower Hamlets council put the building up for sale in a controversial transaction which has since been investigated during an enquiry into the behaviour of the borough's former mayor, Lutfur Rahman. The library building was sold to a restaurant company and is currently being redeveloped into student housing.638 Commercial Road/Limehouse Library (PA/13/2580 & PA/13/2581)
Tower Hamlets Council

Statue of Clement Attlee

Outside the library there formerly stood a statue of Clement Attlee, erected in 1988, who was the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Limehouse from 1922 to 1950, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951. After the library closed, the statue was vandalised, and the council surrounded it with protective hoarding, before removing it for repair and recasting. In April 2011, the statue was unveiled in its new position less than a mile away at Queen Mary University of London, in Mile End.

References

Library buildings completed in 1901 Libraries in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Public libraries in London

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 vir ...

Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets {{London-struct-stub