Now yesterday I revealed that dark secret that Andy Robertson collects police stations, and today I offer up another of his collecting passions.
These are Carnegie Libraries, which were the libraries paid for by the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
For those of us in south Manchester, we have the one in Chorlton, opened in 1914, Didsbury in 1915, and Withington in 1927.
They were three of the 660 he funded in Britain, 1,689 in the United States, 125 in Canada and more elsewhere between 1883 and 1929.
From humble beginnings he had built up a huge steel business before selling out for an estimated $500 million in 1901 and devoting himself to philanthropist projects. Even before he retired, he had been spending money on all sorts of projects of which the establishment of public libraries was just one.
But there are those who would argue the money was not his to give away, having been made by the men who toiled in the steel plants and who were denied the right to organize collectively in his workplaces. But that is another story.
There will be someone who can offer up the history of Failsworth’s library but so far, I have drawn a blank, leaving me to give them a ring later today.
But that won’t stop me from starting the story, and taking these from Andy’s collectors’ album, which he produced on a walk through the township last week.
I do know that it gained an extension relatively recently.
So, I await Andy to pass over his research notes.
And in the meantime I add this which was contribyed by Mark Gutteridge, "the library moved out of this building in to a then modern building around the corner in the 60’s/70’s and the library was used as council offices for many years and became a bit dilapidated.
Then about ten or fifteen years ago the council saw sense and it was refurbished, extended and they moved the library back in".
Location; Failsworth
Picture; Failsworth Public Library, 2019, from the collection of Andy Robertson
For those of us in south Manchester, we have the one in Chorlton, opened in 1914, Didsbury in 1915, and Withington in 1927.
They were three of the 660 he funded in Britain, 1,689 in the United States, 125 in Canada and more elsewhere between 1883 and 1929.
From humble beginnings he had built up a huge steel business before selling out for an estimated $500 million in 1901 and devoting himself to philanthropist projects. Even before he retired, he had been spending money on all sorts of projects of which the establishment of public libraries was just one.
There will be someone who can offer up the history of Failsworth’s library but so far, I have drawn a blank, leaving me to give them a ring later today.
But that won’t stop me from starting the story, and taking these from Andy’s collectors’ album, which he produced on a walk through the township last week.
I do know that it gained an extension relatively recently.
So, I await Andy to pass over his research notes.
And in the meantime I add this which was contribyed by Mark Gutteridge, "the library moved out of this building in to a then modern building around the corner in the 60’s/70’s and the library was used as council offices for many years and became a bit dilapidated.
Then about ten or fifteen years ago the council saw sense and it was refurbished, extended and they moved the library back in".
Location; Failsworth
Picture; Failsworth Public Library, 2019, from the collection of Andy Robertson
Family tradition has it that my Grandfather, William Dunkerley.JP
ReplyDeleteWas involved in arranging location of Failsworth Library. He served as Chairman of the Failsworth Council on four terms. At the time he was manager of the Regent Mill which is located close behind the Library. It may be that the land could have been in the ownership of the Regent Mill directors.??
William Dunkerley also led the construction project for the building of Broadway road at south of Failsworth in the 1930's providing work for large numbers of men during the depression.
Intriguing unknown thank you.
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