The Brotherton Library is a 1936

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

Beaux-Arts building with some

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

fittings, located on the main

campus A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-li ...

of the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. It was designed by the firm of Lanchester & Lodge, and is named after

Edward Brotherton, 1st Baron Brotherton Edward Allen Brotherton, 1st Baron Brotherton (1 April 1856 – 21 October 1930), known as Sir Edward Brotherton, Bt, between 1918 and 1929, was an industrialist in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England and a benefactor to the University of Leeds ...

, who in 1927 donated £100,000 to the university as funding for its first purpose-built library. The Brotherton Library is a hub in what has become ''Leeds University Library''. Initially, it contained all of the university's books and manuscripts, with the exception of books housed in the separate Medical Library and Clothworkers' (Textile) Library. it contains the main collections in arts and languages and the Special Collections' Research Centre, and it houses part of the University Library's administration. Science, engineering and social science research collections are located in the Edward Boyle Library, while the Laidlaw Library contains core texts for undergraduates and a high demand collection and the Health Sciences Library contains the University Library's medical and related collections, with a small satellite library at

St James's University Hospital St James's University Hospital ''Confirming name as "St James's"'' is in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England and is popularly known as Jimmy's. It is one of the United Kingdom's most famous hospitals due to its coverage on television. It is managed ...

. The University Library is also responsible for the University Archives, the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, the Treasures Gallery and the International Textile Collection.

Before the Brotherton

The predecessor of the Brotherton was a library located in the

undercroft An undercroft is traditionally a cellar or storage room, often brick-lined and vaulted, and used for storage in buildings since medieval times. In modern usage, an undercroft is generally a ground (street-level) area which is relatively open ...

of College Hall, an 1894 building of the Yorkshire College, which was founded as the

Leeds School of Medicine The School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Leeds, in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The School of Medicine was founded in 1831. The School of Medicine now forms part of the University's Faculty of Medicine an ...

in 1831. The college became part of the Victoria University in 1887, and College Hall became the

Great Hall of the University of Leeds The Great Hall is a grade II listed Gothic Revival building located at the University of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. The building is primarily used for formal occasions such as graduation ceremonies and university students' examination ...

when the university received its

royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, b ...

in 1904. Fanny Passavant (1849-1944), the first Librarian of the college and subsequently of the university, retired in 1919. At that point, the library contained approximately 65,000 volumes, but the Great Hall's undercroft had long been full and the overflow of books had been distributed around the campus. Passavant's successor, Dr Richard Offor, was charged with the task of building a new University Library, and Lord Brotherton agreed to fund it. Brotherton laid the building's foundation stone in 1930, but died later in the same year. His collection of some 80,000 rare books and manuscripts was given to the university in 1936, along with an endowment to enable appropriate purchases to be made in the future. A suite of rooms to house the Brotherton Collection formed part of the new Brotherton Library. The undercroft of the Great Hall now houses the University Archives, which are managed by the Library.

Architecture and building history

In the 1920s, the university had initiated an Architectural Prize Scheme in order to provide architecture worthy of the institution's increasing prestige. In 1927, the firm of

Henry Vaughan Lanchester Henry Vaughan Lanchester (9 August 1863 – 16 January 1953) was a British architect working in London. He served as editor of '' The Builder'', was a co-founder of the Town Planning Institute and a recipient of the Royal Gold Medal. Biography ...

Thomas Geoffry Lucas Thomas Geoffry Lucas (6 June 1872 – 3 October 1947), generally known as Geoffry Lucas, but often found incorrectly spelt as Geoffrey Lucas, was a 20th-century English architect. He is perhaps best known for his work in connection with the garde ...

and

Thomas Arthur Lodge Thomas Arthur Lodge (1888–1967) was a British architect. He studied at the Architectural Association in London until 1909, and was then articled to Thomas Geoffry Lucas. After a time spent with a number of different firms, Lucas and Henry Vaugh ...

("Lanchester, Lucas & Lodge") was selected to provide "a monumental Beaux-Arts composition which would completely obscure from the outside world all the existing regrettable Waterhouse buildings with grand red brick and

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 ...

". The new buildings, started in 1929, were initially to consist of a Chemistry and Engineering building (opened in 1932) the Brotherton Library (opened in 1936) and the Parkinson Building (opened, eventually, after World War II, in 1950). Lucas had left the firm in 1930, so the new university buildings and a number of later ones, up to 1964, were credited to Lanchester & Lodge. The

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...

s of the Chemistry and Parkinson buildings, facing the main road, are of Portland stone, but the exterior of the Brotherton Library is of unadorned red brick. The reason for this was that it was to be accessed through the Parkinson Building, and there was no reason for it to have a Portland stone exterior when the library would not be easily visible. However, the delay in the Parkinson's construction, initially because of a shortage of funding, meant that the Brotherton's plain exterior was on view for fourteen years. The contrast between the exterior and the interior of the Brotherton could not be greater. Through the glass doors leading from the Parkinson Building into the library, a small entrance hall with a short flight of steps leads up to swing doors which open on to a large cylindrical space surmounted by a concrete dome. The diameter of the room, , was deliberately made wider than the of the

British Museum Reading Room The British Museum Reading Room, situated in the centre of the Great Court of the British Museum, used to be the main reading room of the British Library. In 1997, this function moved to the new British Library building at St Pancras, London, ...

, on which it was modelled. Twenty columns of green Swedish marble, each comprising three drums weighing three tons each, support the

coffer A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault. A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, also ...

ed dome, and there is a balcony with a decorative iron balustrade and an elaborate art deco

electrolier Electrolier is a fixture for holding electric lamps. Normally, the term designates an elaborate light fixture suspended from above, such as a large, multi-bulb pendant light. Additionally, the term is used by architects in the United States to ...

suspended from the dome's centre. On the main floor, the bookshelves are mostly located in bays underneath the balcony; the balcony has an

ambulatory The ambulatory ( la, ambulatorium, ‘walking place’) is the covered passage around a cloister or the processional way around the east end of a cathedral or large church and behind the high altar. The first ambulatory was in France in the 11th ...

providing access to the various subject-areas and to the Brotherton Collection at the rear. Beneath the main floor of the library are two further circular floors. In 1993, a three-floor extension at the rear, the West Building, was opened to provide more space for readers, books and library staff, and to unite the Brotherton Collection with other Special Collections that have accumulated over the years.

Art collection

Works in the University's Art Collection, also managed by the Library, can be seen in the University Gallery, located in the Parkinson Building.

Miscellaneous

The University celebrated the 75th anniversary of the opening of the library with a programme of talks and conducted tours of the building, which culminated on 6 October 2011 in a lecture by

Melvyn Bragg Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg, (born 6 October 1939), is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian. He is best known for his work with ITV as editor and presenter of '' The South Bank Show'' (1978–2010), and for the BBC Radio 4 documen ...

, the

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

of the University, entitled "The Book of Books – the radical impact of the

King James Bible The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of ...

, 1611–2011".Brotherton 75th talks series
Library.leeds.ac.uk. Retrieved 10 August 2011.

References

External links

Leeds University Library HomepageUniversity GalleriesLeeds University Special Collections
{{Authority control Library buildings completed in 1936 Academic libraries in England Buildings and structures of the University of Leeds Listed buildings in Leeds Grade II listed buildings in West Yorkshire Libraries in West Yorkshire Art Deco architecture in Leeds