120 years of the Carnegie Library

It was 120 years ago today that the Loughborough public library on Granby Street was opened. It had been a long time in the planning, and had been preceded by a variety of libraries, the early ones of which were subscription libraries, and therefore only accessible to those who could afford to pay. As early as 1826 there had been a subscription library on Baxter Gate, which included a reading room. Following this a permanent library was established in the Town Hall. These libraries were supplemented by more commercial circulating libraries, again, available only via a subscription, and these were run by local booksellers, like E. T. Soars, and Henry Wills, often in association with Mudies who supplied books across the country.

In the mid-19th century, legislation was passed that allowed local areas to provide free libraries to their population, funded through the payment of rates. This legislation was replaced by that passed in 1892 and 1893, but Loughborough had already taken advantage of the earlier acts, and had opened the first free library in January 1886. The building was on the corner of Green Close Lane, and was opened by Lady John Manners. Henry Deane was the chair of the Free Library Committee, and was supported by, amongst others, John Judges, George Hodson, and Alfred Adolphus Bumpus.

This library served the town well, but eventually, a new, bigger building was needed, and so, in the early 1900s, the town council applied to philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, for funds to build a new library. A sum of £5,000 was agreed, and by October 1904 construction of the new building on Granby Street had begun, the architects, Barrowcliff and Allcock, having been selected via a competition, judged by George Hodson. Very quickly, opening day arrived.

Mr Andrew Carnegie was invited by the Town Clerk, on behalf of the town council, to open the new public library for the building of which he had contributed £5,000. Unfortunately, he was unable to attend due to commitments in London, and so the council approached Joseph Griggs instead. Griggs now lived in Wirksworth, and sent the following reply:

“I am much obliged to the Mayor and Corporation of the borough of Loughborough for the flattering compliment they have paid me by inviting me to open the new free library in the town.

I have not attended any public functions for the past few years, owing chiefly to the state of my health, and to my removal from the borough, but I feel I ought to set aside personal feelings on such an important occasion.

I shall therefore feel obliged if you will kindly convey to the Mayor and Corporation this acknowledgement of their kind invitation, and my acceptance of it. Believe me, yours very truly, Joseph Griggs” – Nottingham Evening Post 22 March 1905

By comparison, Leicester's Carnegie Library had been opened on 8 May 1905 by Carnegie himself, and Melton Mowbray's Carnegie Library was due to be opened by the Marquis of Granby, who was the Lord Lieutenant of the County, but he had been involved in an accident, so the ceremony was performed by William Willcox who was the chair of the Library Committee, and who had made the inital approach for funding to Carnegie.   

The opening of the public library on Granby Street in Loughborough duly took place on the afternoon of Wednesday 21 June 1905. Mr Joseph Griggs, JP, DL, and Loughborough’s first mayor in 1888, did the honours before a large gathering of local people. According to the Nottingham Evening Post that day:

“The building occupies an excellent site presented to the town by Major F.R. Griggs (son of Joseph), and the principal front, which is towards Granby-street, is immediately opposite the Queen’s Park.”

The newspaper article continues with a description of the building:

“The Rennaissance [sic] style has been adopted, and the central feature of the façade is a lofty pediment with ionic columns flanked by octagonal angle turrets, and crowned by a steep pyramidical roof with a domed lantern and vane.”

Inside, the reading-room was a leading feature, being “a spacious apartment 40 feet square and very lofty, a heavy cornice and frieze supported by ionic columns being carried round the room at a height of about 13 feet, forming and octagon of the upper portion. Above is a domed ceiling enriched with modelled plasterwork with a large ceiling light in coloured glass and with lunette windows in each side of the octagon.”

The lending library part of the building was 33 feet by 28 feet, and the full height of the building. The space would be able to hold around 13,000 volumes, which were arranged in tiers 3 feet apart and 7 feet 6 inches high, each section having a window which let in natural light. The library counter was made from polished oak. The lending library also had a wide balcony at the first floor level, which housed a museum, which was approached by a very wide staircase from the entrance hall. The showcases which housed the geological exhibits were polished oak and modern fittings of the time, designed to protect the artefacts, especially from dust. It was Joseph Griggs who generously provided these exhibition cases.

Today, we often use the internet as our go to source of information, but in 1905, reference libraries were the place to go.

“The reference library, 23 feet by 18 feet, is on the ground floor in direct communication with the entrance hall. Provision is made for storing about 3,000 books. As the room is situated as far as possible from the streets, the student is assured of a quiet place in which to work. At the rear of the principal rooms, and office for the librarian, store room [sic], staff room, lavatories, &c., are provided ... the heating installation on the low pressure hot water principal is by Messrs. Messenger and Company … The contractors [William Moss] have executed the work under the supervision of the architects, Messrs. Barrowcliff and Allcock …”

The opening ceremony was overseen by the Mayor, Alderman Thomas Mayo, and Joseph Griggs read out to the assembled people the letter he had received from Andrew Carnegie:

“Dear Mr Griggs,

I am delighted to hear that you are to perform the opening ceremony of the public library at Loughborough. Although absent in body pray assure the good people that I am with them in spirit on Wednesday next, and give them my hearty congratulations upon Loughborough’s new attraction which I am certain is to increase its usefulness with the years. With best wishes for the town and happiness of all its people.

I am very truly yours,
Andrew Carnegie”

Joseph Griggs commented upon the situation of the past, when only 60 years ago there were no free libraries, no free reading rooms, and few books available to people. The old library and reading room that had been established 20 years ago by, amongst others, Henry Deane and Alfred Adolphus Bumpus, had, in his opinion, done good work in the past, and especially to young people of the town, for it gave them facilities for continuing their studies after leaving school, and for equipping them for the battle of life which awaited all youth. He further said that young people must devote much of their time to technical studies in order that the country might keep abreast of developments in Germany and the US. His comments upon the value of books, show how important Joseph Griggs felt reading was:

“There was companionship in good books, and even in depressed conditions of mind and body a good book would ever cheer and comfort, give fresh courage, and would often cause the shadow of life to flee away.”

Upon the official opening of the building, Edward Thomas Allcock presented Joseph Griggs with a key described as being

“of exquisite workmanship, finely wrought, carved and decorated on both sides with enamel. In the upper part of the obverse is an enamelled view of the library. Below this is an ornamental shield upon which is engraved the following inscription ‘Presented to Joseph Griggs, Esq., J.P., D.L., on opening the Carnegie Library, June 21st, 1905.’ Over the view of the library are the initials of Mr Carnegie formed in monogram. The reverse centre of head is occupied by the arms, crest, and motto of the borough of Loughborough, below which are enamelled the arms, crest, and motto of the recipient. There are several mouldings, richly decorated on the stem, which is fluted, and the words are formed by the monogram “J. G.”. On the lower part of the stem is engraved the name of the architects, Messrs. Barrowcliff and Allcock, Loughborough.” 

In his speech, Joseph Griggs had mentioned the Library Committee, particularly its chairman Mr Judges and Mr W. T. Tucker, along with the librarian, Mr Topping, for their enthusiasm in seeing the project through to successful completion. A vote of thanks to Joseph Griggs was proposed by Henry Deane, and seconded by Alderman Bumpus, and Councillor William Cartwright, who was the vice-chair of the Library Committee, proposed a vote of thanks, which was seconded by Councillor Willie Thomas Hampton, to Major F.R. Griggs for his gift of the site. A final vote of thanks was proposed by Mr Maurice Levy, the MP, which was seconded by Mr Judges, to the Mayor.

Before the Mayor entertained a large party to lunch at the town hall, he and Joseph Griggs toured the new library, and were the first people to borrow books from it.

An exhibition about the Carnegie has been prepared by the volunteers at the library, and is currently on display in the exhibition area.

____________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2025). 120 years of the Carnegie Library. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/06/120-years-of-carnegie-library.html [Accessed 21 June 2025]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne