Northfield Library

Northfield Library

Northfield Library is a Carnegie library in Northfield, Birmingham, England[1] which in 1914 became the first open-access lending library in Birmingham.

History

Northfield Library was opened in 1906. The land was provided by the Cadbury family and the building constructed with funds of £750 (£70,388 as of 2015) [2] donated by Andrew Carnegie. The foundation stone was laid by Alderman T. R. Bayliss.

On 12 February 1914 the library burnt to the ground. Suspicion fell on local suffragettes.[3]

It was rebuilt in the same year by the Free Libraries Committee and became the first open-access lending library in Birmingham[4] The façade remains the same; however, in 1984, the library building was doubled in size and a project was undertaken to remove asbestos at the same time. [5]

References

  1. ↑ The and Municipal and County Engineer, Volume 27, p.125
  2. ↑ UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Gregory Clark (2014), "What Were the British Earnings and Prices Then? (New Series)" MeasuringWorth.
  3. ↑ Notes on the history of the Birmingham public libraries: 1861-1961, Birmingham Public Libraries 1962
  4. ↑ Books, Buildings and Social Engineering: Early Public Libraries in Britain from Past to Present. Alistair Black, Simon Pepper, Kaye Bagshaw, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 23 Jun 2009
  5. ↑ The Library Association record. The Library Association., 1984

Coordinates: 52°24′53″N 1°58′02″W / 52.414753°N 1.967317°W