Bath’s first free public lending library opened 100 years ago in July 1924.
In celebration of 100 years of libraries in Bath this exhibition charts the history of all the free public lending libraries in what is now Bath and North East Somerset (a couple of them are even older than 100 years!).
We’re still researching the history of our libraries so if you have any information that might help please let us know.
Moving the Bath Reference Library, 1964.
Bath in Time,12588
With thanks to:
Bath Record Office
Radstock Museum
Keynsham & Saltford Local History Society
Research volunteers: Annie Daykin, Simon Ingram-Hill, Ann Rossiter, Lindsey Davis and John Stanfield
All the many current and ex-staff and Community Libraries who have shared their knowledge and memories for this exhibition.
How Free Public Lending Libraries Came To Bath
Early Public Libraries
Public libraries have been around for longer than we might expect – Chetham’s Library in Manchester is the oldest surviving English public library, founded in 1653. Up until the mid-19th century most were closed-access libraries, with use tightly controlled and users segregated by class, sex and age. For those who could afford it there were circulating and subscription libraries where people could be a member and borrow books for a fee.
Libraries Acts and Funding
The 19th century brought many social and political reforms around working conditions, public health and education for the working classes. Among them was the Public Libraries Act of 1850, which allowed municipal boroughs in England and Wales to build and staff public libraries using funds raised through local rates (though it didn’t include money for books!). By 1914 62% of England’s population lived within a library authority area.
The Public Libraries Act of 1919 took things a step further, scrapping the cap on the proportion of tax that an authority could spend on library provision and thereby reducing reliance on philanthropic top-ups.
The Bath Public Library Campaign
The fight for a public lending library in Bath was long and contentious. While many saw a public library as vital for progress and supporting working people, many more objected to paying more tax for it.
The campaign started early: a committee was formed and they began to collect books and look for premises. The first application was made to the Council in 1869, but the Guildhall was inundated by taxpayers who objected and the proposal was voted down. A second attempt in 1872 fared the same, with pro-library speakers heckled by the crowd. Although the pro-library movement steadily grew, the motion was defeated for a third time in 1877.
After that the argument played out through posters, flyers and the newspapers, who each took a side. A postal poll of 1880 once again decided against a new library.
Bath Reference Library
A significant number of books had been donated throughout the campaign, many of them local books. In 1893 they were brought together in a dome room in the Guildhall and the non-lending Reference Library was born. It was a quiet beginning with no advertising and most people didn’t even know it was there!
When the Victoria Art Gallery was built in 1900 the Reference Library was included and given a more suitable home, and the campaigners took their chance to submit a new proposal to create a lending library alongside the Reference Library. They were defeated by another poll in 1906.
Success!
By July 1923 only 22 boroughs in England, of which Bath was the largest, had not created a public lending library. Up until this point the Libraries Acts had stipulated that two-thirds of the city’s ratepayers had to agree to the proposal and the addition of a penny to the rates. This stipulation was finally removed and the Council debated the proposals again in 1923 without need for a public vote. The proposal was finally approved. Bath’s first public lending library opened only a year later in July 1924.
Libraries Today
We are still guided by the ideal that access to knowledge and education through libraries should be available for everyone, for free. The Libraries Acts now write this into law – all unitary, county or metropolitan borough councils have a statutory duty: ‘to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons’.
Today Bath and North East Somerset has three authority-run public libraries: Bath Central Library, Keynsham Library and Midsomer Norton Library. They also run a Mobile Library to take the service out as widely as possible.
The region also has 8 Community Run Libraries and 3 small Independent Libraries, providing hubs right in the heart of their communities.
Bath’s New Lending Library 1924
The first free public lending library in Bath opened in the Victoria Art Gallery in July 1924. It was housed in the converted Print Room, next to the non-lending Reference Library. It began with 9,200 books.
The Mayor borrowed the first book at the opening of the library – The Heavenly Twins by Madam Sarah Grand, a novel exploring gender issues and feminism in the late 19th century. A copy is still held in the Bath Record Office.
Bridge Street
The library was hugely popular and expanded quickly, until it took up the whole ground floor of the Gallery and part of the basement.
Unfortunately, major flooding in the storage areas in the 1960s means we don’t have many images of this time – you can see that the photograph below left has suffered some damage.
Municipal Lending Library
Everything was managed by a card system, and librarians could use the cards to track the location of every book, whether on the shelf or being borrowed. If a library user wanted to find a book that wasn’t on the public shelves they had to search through long drawers of index cards and then fill out a request slip so the librarian could fetch it. (Despite the advance in technology, sometimes we still use the slip system for the Reference Collections today.)
The library contained a huge number of reference books and directories and the staff would pride themselves on being able to find the answer to almost any question – they were Google long before the internet!
The Books
When Bath Municipal Lending Library opened in 1924 it had 9,200 books.
Before local authority funding for books was brought in, our early libraries were mostly reliant on donations for their book stock. Sometimes that was money from local philanthropists, more often it was donations of books themselves – our Historic Reference Collection still contains books that were donated in this way.
Our oldest and most valuable books are held in Bath Record Office, who have around 1,000 books in their collections, mostly from the 17th and 18th century.
Bath Central Library still houses two rare collections:
- The Juvenile Collection – a large collection of children’s literature dating from Victorian times to Harry Potter.
- The Napoleonic Collection – a collection of French Revolutionary, Napoleonic and contemporary European books.
Today B&NES Libraries buy and manage all the book stock for the B&NES and Community Run Libraries, with Moorland Road Community Library also holding a small collection of its own. The independent libraries at Southside, Larkhall and Combe Hay have their own collections and, like the early libraries, are still reliant on donations.
We’ve come a long way from that start of 9,200 books in Bath. As part of Libraries West our members now have access to over 2 million physical items.
While our eBooks and eAudio-books are very popular, physical books will always be at the heart of the library.
And remember – we don’t charge late fees!
Queen Square
The combined Reference and Lending Libraries at Bridge Street kept growing, and following the flooding in the 1960s the decision was made to separate them to give both more space.
Bath Reference Library moved out to Queen Square in 1964 as a temporary measure – and ended up staying there for 26 years!
The huge cast of a plesiosaur skeleton you can see in the photograph above right was a reminder of the building’s previous occupant, the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute.
The Children’s Library
When Bath Municipal Lending Library opened in 1924 it had 9,200 books.
Before local authority funding for books was brought in, our early libraries were mostly reliant on donations for their book stock. Sometimes that was money from local philanthropists, more often it was donations of books themselves – our Historic Reference Collection still contains books that were donated in this way.
A New Home The Podium
A new site was being sought for the libraries and was found in the proposed development of the empty Podium on Northgate Street. Plans were being developed in the mid-1970s, but it wasn’t until 1987 that construction was underway. For the first time this was a building designed specifically for the Bath Public Libraries together.
Libraries Reunited
On 28th September 1990 the Lending and Reference Libraries were reunited in their new home in The Podium and named Bath Central Library.
Having been separate for so long it was a challenge to bring everything back together and to find a new home for everything in the new building.
The move also brought together the staff from Bridge Street and Queen Square, along with the Bath Branches Team, who worked mainly at Moorland Road Library, Weston Library and on the Mobile Library.
Bath Central Library 1990s
Three staff worked at the Enquiry Desk at any one time, and it was positioned right in the middle of the library. There was a large counter…positioned in what is now Quick Select…and the area in the middle was full of trollies for all the returned books. Despite the number of staff working there were still often queues as all procedures and processes took longer than now.
Hilary Cox, Development and Outreach Officer
Memories of working in Bath Central Library only a few years after it opened
Remember These?
The Podium Puffer was a favourite in the Children’s Library from 1990-2004
The Record Library 1990 – quite a mix of cover art on display!
The Scarab by Edwin Whitney-Smith marked the entrance to the Bridge Street Library from inside the Victoria Art Gallery for many years.
Reference Moves Again
After another 27 years together, the Reference and Lending Libraries were again to part.
In 2017 the Local Studies and Special Collections were moved to the Guildhall, to become part of the expanded Bath Record Office: Archives and Local Studies.
Their collection fills 5km of shelving in the Guildhall basement as well as offsite storage, and the knowledge of the team is second to none – well worth a visit if you’re undertaking any research.
Bath Central Library Today
Bath Central Library today welcomes around 214,000 people a year through its doors, to borrow books, to study, to use the computers, to visit the Sensory Space, to play in the Lego Lab or just to have a safe space to keep warm – all for free.
With the many challenges our communities have faced over recent years libraries and all they offer are more important than ever.
We hope to be here for another 100 years – and we look forward to what that future might bring!
The Women of Keynsham
The story of the beginning of Keynsham’s Public Library is dominated by women.
It starts with a group of Keynsham ladies in 1941, who approached Somerset County Council to request that a public library be set up in the Old Liberal Club on Bath Hill. They must have made a good case because the library opened on July 4th the same year.
The first librarian, Mrs E C Hartley, ran a team of women volunteers. A library committee member remembers that one of the volunteers disapproved of Enid Blyton books and tried to have them removed!
Another volunteer, Miss Mary Fairclough, was commissioned to paint a map of historic Keynsham. With canvas hard to come by she used hessian from tea chests instead. The map is still on display in the current Keynsham Library.
The Library at Bath Hill
The Library at Bath Hill was on two floors – the upper floor for adults and the downstairs room for children. A local man and his sister donated 1,000 books and all the furniture and fittings to set up the Children’s Library.
The library was a community hub from the start, with everything from council meetings to play-reading groups being held there. However, the building itself wasn’t always in the best of repair.
The room was sometimes blue with smoke from the heating stove, and Miss Fairclough remembered:
One afternoon there was a sudden cracking sound and a large section of ceiling descended in chunks of plaster and a cloud of dust over the desk: followed, after a moment’s horrified silence, by one small mouse.
Linda Horne was librarian at Keynsham from 1983-1989.
We’re grateful to her for many of the Keynsham stories shared in this exhibition.
Busiest Library in Somerset
With the post-war growth of Keynsham, the library went from strength to strength.
From 1958 there were paid staff rather than volunteers and opening increased from 3 to 5 days a week. Keynsham Library became the busiest library in Somerset.
It was clear that a bigger building was needed, and in 1965 the library moved out of Bath Hill and into the new development on Temple Street.
After only a year issues had risen by 100,000, peaking in 1979 at a huge 396,000 a year.
A New Modern Library
In 2011 Keynsham Library was on the move again as their building was demolished to create a new Civic Centre, Library and Community Space. For 3 years the library was in an old archive and records office on the Riverside Complex on Temple Street, with only room for half the books and beset by leaks and flooding.
The new building opened in October 2014 – designed to be energy efficient and with a glass floor to display the Roman mosaic beneath.
At the same time the library combined with the One Stop Shop to provide Council Services in the same space.
Keynsham Library, Information and Advice Services will celebrate the 10th anniversary of their building in October this year – look out for details of activities and events!
Keynsham Library Today
Keynsham Library, Information and Advice services today offers books, study spaces and computers, council services, a Sensory Space, and a cup of tea and slice of cake in Pam’s Pantry!
In 2023-24 86,000 people visited Keynsham Library and numbers keep increasing!
Midsomer Norton
The Drill Hall 1921
Midsomer Norton Library is one of the oldest free public lending libraries in what is now Bath and North East Somerset, second only to Radstock Library.
The library opened in the Drill Hall on the High Street in 1921 under Somerset County Council and was for a long time the smallest library in the area, with Radstock being the largest and busiest.
By 1927 Midsomer Norton was part of a co-operative agreement with other library authorities in Somerset, giving them access to a larger catalogue. This is an early precursor of the Libraries West consortium we’re part of today.
Somerset County Council began providing all the library’s stock in 1962, including non-fiction books where before there had only been fiction. There was some criticism from readers that the new books weren’t light enough!
Was the library somewhere before the Drill Hall? Is it even older than Radstock Library?
If you have any information please let us know.
In the early 1940s the library moved over the road to The Hollies, taking up the whole right side of the building, including the block that was later demolished to make way for Safeway (now Sainsbury’s). The entrance was through the grand door at the front – now painted bright red.
Despite being larger than the Drill Hall there was no workroom or staffroom in The Hollies. The two staff had to do everything on the counter, which would have presented a real challenge in finding space for all the books and cards!
Brand New Building
Issues of books declined through the 1960s, attributed to a lack of space. The campaign for a better home for the library began in earnest in the 1970s, led by Councillor Mrs Betty Perry. It took a decade to win, but the new, purpose-built library building opened in November 1983.
The opening of the new building marked a significant change for all the local libraries. Midsomer Norton became the largest and primary library in the area and Radstock, which had until then held that position, became a branch library to Midsomer Norton.
In 2011 the library suffered significant damage after a pipe burst in the freezing weather. The heating system, some furniture and 300 books had to be replaced.
The Hollies – Again!
After 35 years, with technology changing, Midsomer Norton Library found itself in need of a new home again. So across the High Street it went for the third time, back to The Hollies!
This time the library joined up with the One Stop Shop to become Midsomer Norton Library and Information Services. An excellent modern design was commissioned to meet the new, joint needs while still retaining the essence of the library that’s so important to the community.
MSN Library Today
Midsomer Norton Library, Information and Advice Services today is as much a hub of the community as it was in its small beginnings in the Drill Hall.
88,000 people visited in 2023-24, making use of the books, computers, study spaces, council services, games and the Sensory Space.
The Midsomer Norton team have built a particularly good reputation for their children’s activities and events. It’s a small place of great imagination.
From Paper to Pixels – Changing Technology
For hundreds of years, libraries were organised by card catalogues. Every book had a card which had handwritten (later typed) details including title, author and where it could be found on the shelves.
Everything changed with the introduction of computers.
It took time to input thousands of books for the very first time, but when it was complete the whole catalogue could be searched and managed in a fraction of the time.
Digitisation changed the look of the library – gone were the banks of card indexes and instead there were staff computers.
As access to information at home became easier the banks of shelving for reference books and directories that once took up half the floor space became less and less used, eventually given to fiction instead.
Libraries today would be unrecognisable to those who used them in the first half of the 20th century. Most of our customers borrow and return books using the kiosks and we’re able to link up with seven other authorities through the Libraries West consortium to offer all members access to over 2 million items.
We have eBooks and eAudiobooks. Our newspapers and magazines are now digitally available and thousands of people access them every month. We also have a Virtual Library with book reviews, games, information and more. Where will we go next?
The Mobile Library
We don’t know what date the first Mobile Library rolled out across what is now Bath & North East Somerset, but we do know that in the 1960s there were three on the road: one at Keynsham, one at Radstock and one in Bath.
Our earliest record is a Mobile Library at Keynsham in 1958. Originally managed from Bridgewater Library, until Keynsham Library took it over in 1965, it was stored behind the Charlton Cinema.
The Mobile at Radstock covered the north west of Somerset, and in 1966 the Bath Mobile service expanded to include Combe Down on the route.
The Mobile Library in the image above originally belonged to Gloucester Libraries. It was replaced in November 1968 with Bath’s first brand new Mobile Library, which cost £4,000, probably the one pictured on the right.
There have been many variations of Mobile Libraries over the years. Graham Ewen, Mobile Library driver from 1982 to the mid-1990s, remembers his first van as ‘a decrepit and battered petrol driven vehicle’ – on one occasion the petrol was stolen from it while it was outside a school.
Helen Beckwith remembers working on the Mobile in 1994 and the challenge of toilet stops: ‘We sometimes went in pubs, sometimes had to ask readers if we could use theirs on particularly bad days. It’s not so different now!’
Our current Mobile Library hit the road in 2019 and is out every weekday on regular routes, outreach visits or events – not to mention an annual slot at Bath Christmas Market.
Library At Home
The idea of taking books out to people who aren’t able to get to the library gained a lot of publicity during the Covid pandemic, but it’s been going on for much longer than that.
In 1979 Keynsham Library began a service taking collections of books to group dwellings for older people, which later merged with a similar service run by the Red Cross.
Two volunteers, Eileen Colburn and Jean Weare, were given long service awards in 2006 for 20 years of work with the Home Library Service, which by then had already been going for 30 years from Midsomer Norton and Keynsham Libraries.
They co-ordinated a team of volunteers who delivered books to residents who weren’t able to get to the library for many different reasons. The friendly face was then, and remains, sometimes more important than the books.
Staff at Midsomer Norton Library launched a Books on Wheels service in the 1980s as an extension of the Home Library Service, delivering books and magazines to Paulton Memorial Hospital.
Our Library at Home Service today offers three different ways to support residents whose ability to leave home is restricted. All are still delivered by a brilliant team of volunteers.
- Home Library Service
- Reading Friends
- Book Drop
Branch and Community Libraries
Branch libraries in Bath and North East Somerset were smaller libraries run by the council as a part of a whole public library system. Many of B&NES branch libraries were originally run by Parish or Town Councils before being brought together with the larger authority run libraries to benefit from shared resources, staff and joint organisation.
In 2017 libraries had to find a new way of working, as council finances encountered unprecedented restrictions. Local communities came together to take over the branch libraries, which became Community Libraries. Today, the Community Libraries are independently run but work closely with B&NES libraries, sharing stock and a library management system to make sure all public libraries in Bath and North East Somerset work together as a network for all residents.
Moorland Road Library
Moorland Road Library opened as a branch library in 1961. The building was always used for learning – previously a school, a Co-operative lecture hall and then a temporary cinema during World War II – so it’s fitting that it has been home to the library for so long.
It was one of the most popular branch libraries for staff and they would vie to be posted there. Footfall was frequently the highest of the branch libraries with very loyal customers.
The original shelving was more of a challenge – by the 2010s it was said to be held together by staff repairs and luck!
In 2019 the transition was made to become Moorland Road Community Library, managed by four Trustees and run by a team of volunteers under charitable status.
Radstock Library
Radstock is the oldest public lending library in what is now Bath and North East Somerset. It began life in 1897 as a reading room and library in the newly built Victoria Hall, and was made a public library under the Libraries Acts on 11th July 1904.
Control of expenditure on stock was very tight – in 1910 Radstock Council gave the library special permission to buy the complete works of Dickens, which was seen as an important but extravagant purchase.
Radstock was the main library for the area and in 1973 moved into a purpose-designed, architectural award-winning building, where it has stayed ever since.
When the new, bigger library was built in Midsomer Norton in 1983 however, Radstock became a branch library.
In April 2019 it transformed again to become Radstock Library and Community Hub, run by a team of volunteers under Radstock Town Council.
Paulton Library
Paulton Library opened on 14th July 1954, in a room next to Purnell & Sons at Winterfield, and moved to the Central Methodist Church Hall in 1966. In 1974 its space was doubled by an extension, which gave the whole library room for nearly 6,000 books, described by the Chair of the Parish Council as ‘a dream for a long time.’
It became a branch library in 2013, moving across the road to its current location in the shopping precinct, which was previously a bank and a chemist before being converted into the library and café.
In November 2018 Paulton Parish Council took over managing the library and after some internal building work it re-opened as a Community Library, run by a team of volunteers.
Saltford Library
Saltford was served by the Mobile Library for many years, but the community wanted a more permanent service and so in 1978, following public demand, a branch library was opened in a former hardware store on Bath Road. Some of the staff in the 1980s were avid knitters and perfected the art of knitting while still serving customers.
Before work was undertaken to improve the building it was very damp. Kerri Brain remembers: ‘we often found snail trails around the library and evidence of them snacking on any paper left on the floor!’
Today Saltford Community Library is still in the same premises, without snails, and is run by volunteers under the umbrella of the Saltford Residents Association, following the change from branch to Community Library in July 2018.
Weston Library
Weston Branch Library opened in 1951, in a building gifted to the people of Weston by a local vicar in the late 18th century. The building was to be used as a shared home for community organisations and activities and the library has been an integral part of it for over 70 years.
While Bath City Council managed the library, it was run by volunteer members of the community until 1962, when the council were able to provide paid staff and open the library every day.
Weston Branch Library operated until 2018, and re-opened in 2019 as Love Weston Library, coming full circle to be once again run by members of the community. In 2023 it was granted charitable status and continues to be run by volunteers under the direction of a Board of Trustees.
100 Years On – The New Libraries
Chew Valley Library
Chew Valley Community Library opened as Bishop Sutton Community Library in November 2018. It is run entirely by volunteers and guided by a Community Library Committee, under the Parish Council.
Timsbury Community Library
The village of Timsbury was originally served by the Mobile Library, but opened their own Timsbury Community Library in September 2018 in the Timsbury YMCA, run by Timsbury Parish Council.
Peasedown St John Community Library
Peasedown St John Community Library was set up as a Community Run Library in 2019 and is located in the Hive Community Centre. It is run by volunteers as part of the Peasedown Community Trust and has charitable status.
Larkhall Community Library
Larkhall Community Library opened in 2010 in New Oriel Hall and is a very active community hub run by volunteers. It is an independent library that offers a great range of books.
Southside Community Library
Southside Library has been run by Youth Connect South West since 2015. It has both corporate and charitable status and, although it is an independent library, it links with B&NES Libraries through book stock donated by B&NES.
Combe Hay Community Library
Combe Hay Community Library is a small independent library located in the back of Combe Hay Parish Church. It was set up by the community in 2017 and operates on a trust basis overseen by the Parish Council.
You can see a map of all our Libraries, with opening times and contact details, on our Virtual Library.
What’s Next?
Our Centenary Research Project will continue for the whole of 2024 and we will update this exhibition with new finds. You can find out about the celebrations and events we will be hosting throughout the year on our Virtual Library.
If you have memories, pictures or other items you’d like to share, please email us at Library_Events@bathnes.gov.uk