15 1601 Free Grammar School, Coventry


Believed to be the first public library, freely and fully accessible to the general public. Other examples were created in Norwich, Bristol and Leicester.


1653 Chetham Library


Humphrey Chetham, a Lancashire wool merchant and money-lender


granted £1,000 to set up what is now believed to be the oldest functioning public library in the English speaking world.


1835


Public Institutions Bill MP John Silk


Buckingham’s bill would have allowed boroughs to levy a tax to create museums and libraries. It failed to make it to the statute books, but proved to be influential.


1841 The London Library


Still running today. Its launch included some of the greatest literary figures of the


Victorian era, with John Cochrane appointed its first librarian.


1768 The Leeds Library


The oldest surviving subscription library (many other towns had them too)


owned and run by members to acquire new books that their members wished to read and to collect them perpetually.


1845 The Museums Act


Seen as another major influence paving the way to the Public Libraries Act by empowering boroughs of 10,000 or more to raise taxes to build museums.


1850 The Public Libraries Bill


The Act allowed (but not require) town councils administering 10,000+ people to levy a tax for a library building and staff (books had to be supplied by the local community).


1851 First public libraries


The first library to open under the Act was in Winchester (some say


Salford). Norwich was the first authority to adopt the Act a year earlier but its ambitious project did not open until 1857.


1877 Library Association


Formed as a result of the first International Conference of


Librarians to administer qualifications for


librarians. It was granted a Royal Charter in 1898.


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