It’s been a while since I have been in the library and had quite forgotten the simplicity of the design.
It was built in fulfilment of a promise made when Didsbury, along with Burnage, Chorlton, and Withington, voted to join the City in 1904.
That said it would be another 11 years before Didsbury’s residents got their new Library, but when it was finished it was a brand-new Library, fit for a new century and replaced a small municipal library which had opened in 1908.
While it’s outside was in the words of its architect “'designed in the fifteenth century gothic style with tracery windows and emblems of Science, Knowledge, Literature, Music and Arts and Crafts in stone distributed over the building.” *
Internally it belonged to the 20th century with electric light which “was designed to allow the public free access to the shelves, browsing and reading areas. The walls were tiled to dado height, the floor cork carpeted and the oak furniture, fittings and partitions cost £600”.
But it wasn’t the first library, because back in the May of 1854, a more modest venture was opened in the National School.
It was the work of a group of wealthy residents and “the inauguration meeting was held in the schoolroom, which is to be used for the library and reading room and is well adapted for the purpose being lighted with gas and well ventilated. The stock of books in the library at present is not large, but they are well selected, and there are ample funds for the purchase of more when needed”. **
The subscription had been “fixed as low as possible, - a penny a week, - in order to diffuse the benefits of the institution as widely as possible”.
And as befitted the age, more than a few speakers at the opening meeting took the moral high ground, with one asserting that the library would act as a counter to the “the public house which was the resort only of those who had no other enjoyment”.
While another “referred with regret to the fact that ‘Roderick Random’ was the most read book in the noble Free Library of Manchester and while admiring the humour of the author he feared the book was perused for its objectionable features, and he advised them to purge their library of anything injurious to the morals of the people”.
Location; Didsbury
Picture; Didsbury Library, 1967, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk
*The Didsbury Library, Manchester Guardian May 17th, 1915
**Opening of Didsbury Library and Institution, Manchester Guardian, May 17th, 1854
It was built in fulfilment of a promise made when Didsbury, along with Burnage, Chorlton, and Withington, voted to join the City in 1904.
That said it would be another 11 years before Didsbury’s residents got their new Library, but when it was finished it was a brand-new Library, fit for a new century and replaced a small municipal library which had opened in 1908.
While it’s outside was in the words of its architect “'designed in the fifteenth century gothic style with tracery windows and emblems of Science, Knowledge, Literature, Music and Arts and Crafts in stone distributed over the building.” *
But it wasn’t the first library, because back in the May of 1854, a more modest venture was opened in the National School.
It was the work of a group of wealthy residents and “the inauguration meeting was held in the schoolroom, which is to be used for the library and reading room and is well adapted for the purpose being lighted with gas and well ventilated. The stock of books in the library at present is not large, but they are well selected, and there are ample funds for the purchase of more when needed”. **
The subscription had been “fixed as low as possible, - a penny a week, - in order to diffuse the benefits of the institution as widely as possible”.
And as befitted the age, more than a few speakers at the opening meeting took the moral high ground, with one asserting that the library would act as a counter to the “the public house which was the resort only of those who had no other enjoyment”.
While another “referred with regret to the fact that ‘Roderick Random’ was the most read book in the noble Free Library of Manchester and while admiring the humour of the author he feared the book was perused for its objectionable features, and he advised them to purge their library of anything injurious to the morals of the people”.
Location; Didsbury
Picture; Didsbury Library, 1967, "Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection", https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR0t6qAJ0-XOmfUDDqk9DJlgkcNbMlxN38CZUlHeYY4Uc45EsSMmy9C1YCk
*The Didsbury Library, Manchester Guardian May 17th, 1915
**Opening of Didsbury Library and Institution, Manchester Guardian, May 17th, 1854
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