When a Bill to introduce public libraries was debated in the House of Commons in 1850, the MP for Lincoln, Colonel Charles de Laet Waldo Sibthorp, was implacably opposed. If the government was going to open libraries for common folk, why then, “he supposed they would be thinking of supplying the working classes with quoits, peg-tops, and foot-ball,” and with “the performances of Punch.”
Colonel Sibthorp was a member of the Ultra-Tories, a faction which had split from the main Tories because it opposed the emancipation of Catholics. Not altogether surprisingly, the Ultras were also against the emancipation of Jews, giving votes to middle-class men, repeal of the Corn Laws – and the opening of the National Gallery. Sibthorp thought railways were simply ridiculous.
The Ultras were not alone in their opposition to the idea of public libraries – was it really wise, many wondered, to let the lower orders loose on literature intended for their betters? - but even so, the first facility established under the provisions of the Public Libraries Act opened on 5th September 1852.
In accordance with the Act, proponents of The Manchester Free Library had first to win a referendum of local ratepayers; the result of that poll was a landslide in favour. At the opening ceremony, attended by Dickens, Thackeray, Bulwer-Lytton and other celebrities, the mayor made it explicitly clear that “We have been animated solely by the desire to benefit our poorer fellow-creatures.”
This paternalism was a strong factor in the early public library movement, with reformers arguing that workers who spent their free time in the library rather than in the pub would be saved from the various temptations of drunkenness, crime and political agitation. By contrast, others in the ruling class feared that any move which allowed greater education of the proletariat must surely lead to greater dissatisfaction with their place in society. Perhaps apocryphally, a colliery owner is said to have opposed the opening of a public library in Swansea in 1870 with the words “The more education people get, the more difficult they are to manage.” It’s a debate that has never quite disappeared, though few would state it openly today: are libraries a distraction from rebellion, or an encouragement of it?
At a time when a new generation of ultras has taken complete control of the Conservative Party, it’s worth remembering that after the 2010 general election (when a coalition with the Tories returned the Liberals to government after a century out of power, not counting wartime coalitions), the defunding of public libraries seemed to be one of the new administration’s greatest priorities. At least a fifth of the UK’s public libraries have closed since 2010, and expenditure on those remaining has plummeted. The extraordinary, life-changing idea that became real in Manchester that day – of a library free to use, and free for anyone to use – has always been controversial and will always horrify some right-wingers.
One of the greatest figures in the history of libraries in Britain was an Italian revolutionary who ended up with a British knighthood. Antonio Genesio Maria Panizzi – later known as Sir Anthony Panizzi - was sentenced to death for subversion, having allegedly been involved in a radical conspiracy against the government of the Duchy of Modena. He escaped, and arrived in London in 1823 as a penniless asylum seeker, unable to speak the language.
In the early days of his exile he would receive bills from the Modena regime, seeking to charge him in advance for the cost of his own execution, but he managed to get a junior job at the library of the British Museum (now known as the British Library), and by 1856 he was running the place. By now a UK citizen, he was knighted in 1869.
Panizzi’s determination that “the poor student” should enjoy “the same means of indulging his learned curiosity, of following his rational pursuits, of fathoming the most intricate inquiry” as should “the richest man in the kingdom” drove his innovative work at the library. Much which became standard practice in libraries for the next hundred years was created by Panizzi, especially in the field of cataloguing, and he designed, and oversaw the creation of, the famous Reading Room. Under the old rebel’s rule, the BM’s library grew to become the pre-eminent library in the world.
Once Italy was united as a single nation, Panizzi could have taken his pick of top political jobs back home, but he preferred to stay with his catalogues. Among his many bibliographical achievements, he is said to have invented the “panizzi pin,” a device to prevent bookshelves wobbling – which sounds like a decent life’s work on its own.
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Sources:
www.wcml.org.uk/our-collections/object-of-the-month/manchester-public-free-libraries/
www.historyofparliamentonline.org/periods/hanoverians/ultra-tories-and-fall-wellington-government-1830
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1850-06-13/debates/a90ab744-2e9f-4998-bf6e-452d3b14edce/CommonsChamber
https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.148428/2015.148428.A-History-Of-Public-Libraries-In-Great-Britain-1845-1975_djvu.txt
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/01/the-quiet-disappearance-of-britains-public-libraries
www.fforestfachhistory.com/Collieries/collieries.html
Library: an unquiet history by Matthew Battles (W.W. Norton, 2003)
https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2015/09/from-revolutionary-to-librarian-sir-anthony-panizzi.html
www.italyonthisday.com/2017/09/sir-antony-panizzi-British-Museum-revolutionary.html