Campfield Site

The first rate-supported library in Manchester was inaugurated on the 2 Sep 1852 in the old Hall of Science, Campfield, which had been built some eighteen years earlier for the use of the followers of Robert Owen. The opening ceremony attracted a distinguished platform of speakers. Literature was represented by Dickens, Thackeray and Lytton and the Social Sciences by Shaftesbury and John Bright. This library was opened, with about 20,000 volumes, at an initial cost of less than £7,000 (excluding books). By 1877 the building was deemed unsafe and the Reference Library moved to King Street, while the Lending Library was put into storage until the Deansgate Lending Library was opened.

Related Material:See also:

M740/2/8/1/51 for papers regarding the establishment and opening of the Library.

M740/1/3 and M740/1/5 for Campfield and Chief Library sub-committees

MS f 942.72 R121 vol. 37 p. 184: Notes of a meeting in the Hall of Science, Campfield, 1844

M3/2/106A-E: Deeds of the Hall of Science, purchased to establish a public lending library and reading rooms, 1825-1850

MISC/602: Photocopy of a letter from J. Aspinall Turner about the cost of the public library, but the numbers who use it show it was a worthwhile expense

L1/46/11: Admission ticket to the opening of the Free Library, 1852

MISC/411, 412: Letters from John Harland and James Crossley about the library's decision to publish a catalogue, 1855

BR f 020.9 E1: Commonplace book of Edward Edwards, Librarian; includes 'a special report ... on a classed catalogue of the reference department', 1857

M136/2/3/701: Letter from George Combe offering his works, 1852

M136/2/3/2603, 2604, 2954: Acknowledgements by John Potter, etc., of gift of pamphlets by the National Public School Association, 1851-1854

MISC/1136: Manchester Public Libraries Lending Department reader's ticket, 1854

M740/2/15/93 Plan of Campfield Market No. 2, 1879