St. Philip's Parish Library, also known as the Higgs Library, was 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 ...

attached to

St Philip's Church ''Riceyman Steps'' is a novel by British novelist Arnold Bennett, first published in 1923 and winner of that year's James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. It follows a year in the life of Henry Earlforward, a miserly second-hand bookshop ow ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

between 1733 and 1927. The library was founded in 1733 by St. Philip's first rector William Higgs and was based around his own collection of books, supplemented by purchases paid for from a bequest of £200. Unlike Birmingham's earliest public library, founded between 1635 and 1642, or the later Birmingham Library of 1779 – both of which were largely

dissenting Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to ...

institutions – Higgs' Library was associated with the established

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

. Advertised as "free to all clergymen in the town and neighbourhood", it was also open to laymen with the permission of the rectors of St. Philips or of Birmingham's original parish of

St Martin in the Bull Ring St Martin in the Bull Ring is a Church of England parish church in the city of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. It is the original parish church of Birmingham and stands between the Bull Ring Shopping Centre and the markets. The church is ...

. The library moved in 1792 to a room adjoining the parsonage in St. Philip's churchyard. A catalogue of 1795 shows that by then the library had acquired a wide range of books on philosophy,

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analy ...

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. ...

and literary criticism, as well as the expected range of theological and ecclesiastical literature. The library was closed in 1927, with 300 volumes from its collection being presented to

Birmingham Central Library Birmingham Central Library was the main public library in Birmingham, England, from 1974 until 2013, replacing a library opened in 1865 and rebuilt in 1882. For a time the largest non-national library in Europe, it closed on 29 June 2013 and wa ...

and 150 volumes being presented to

Queen's College, Edgbaston The Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education (also called the Queen's Foundation, Birmingham and formerly the Queen's College, Birmingham) is an ecumenical theological college which, with the West Midlands Ministerial Training Cour ...

References

{{Authority control Libraries in Birmingham, West Midlands History of Birmingham, West Midlands