Britain’s public library service is usually dated from the 1850 Public Libraries Act, attributed to the reformer William Ewart. As with so much in public services, the parliamentary act was the culmination of local struggles, and efforts by members of the library profession.
One of them was Edward Edwards, a former bricklayer who worked at what was then the British Museum library, and a Chartist sympathiser who was to become the first librarian of the Manchester Free Library.
The act allowed local councils with a population over 10,000, if two-thirds of the rate payers voted in favour in a referendum, to fund public libraries from the rates, but by no more than a halfpenny in the pound. Even this was controversial: opponents argued that libraries would become working-class lecture halls which would give rise to what they called an unhealthy agitation.
A number of councils took this up and in 1888 county councils were also included. The halfpenny rate, later a penny rate restriction, was lifted. Public libraries became important centres for adult education, information through reference libraries and, though it was controversial, reading for recreation.
The profession of librarianship developed too, with the foundation of a professional body in 1877, the Library Association (now the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals).
In 1942 Lionel McColvin, the chief librarian of Westminster, produced a report commissioned by the Library Association into the public library system, and how it might be rebuilt after the war, described as the Beveridge report for libraries. Though many of its recommendations were not immediately accepted it was hugely influential on the subsequent developments.
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