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The Free Library in Canterbury dates back to 1858. It was the first in the country to be established under the 1850 Library Act, which enabled free public access to books and amenities, paid for out of a 1d levy on local rates. Maidstone was another early adopter of the new Act, setting up a Free Library in 1858. Folkestone followed suit in 1879.¹

The Canterbury Corporation started with a modest assortment of books, having taken over the library and museum collections of the Canterbury Philosophical and Literary Institution (originally based in Guildhall Street). The nationwide Phil and Lits, as they were known, offered important opportunities to their members, through the free provision of books. But importantly, the Library Act enabled access to a public reading room - and crucially libraries were under considerable pressure from users to include fiction.

There was nonetheless some variation in the provision. Folkestone Free Library was initially strict in its application of the rules, with only ratepayers being allowed to borrow books. In 1881 in Canterbury ‘the same privilege is extended to Residents on a Rate-payer signing a printed form guaranteeing the safety of the Books.’²

But there were similar concerns over the paucity of books in the lending department, as well as controversy about what counted as suitable reading. In 1887 the Canterbury library was still refusing to stock novels by Mary Braddon. As one exasperated reader complained, this was ‘a great annoyance to lovers of good fiction. Many who take books from this library have more admiration for her works than for our sanctimonious and goody-goody Museum Committee. Apparently it is the few who linger lovingly about the rooms all day and as far into the night as the bye-laws permit them who tacitly control the choice of books, papers, and periodicals.’³

Further controversy ensued in the spring of 1889 when Dr James Beaney, a former Canterbury resident who had made a large fortune in Australia, offered to build new premises for the library in his home town. The Town Council wrote back to ask if they could have a new town hall instead, in what the respected library historian Thomas Greenwood called ‘a piece of the coolest presumption that has been ever known in connection with such a proposal.’⁴ The offer was withdrawn, although Beaney relented sufficiently to leave £10,000 in his will when he died in June 1891. The new building opened in its current position in the High Street in 1899. The committee began soliciting donations to supplement their stock as they were ‘unable to begin the lending library with as many books as they would have wished.’ ⁵ Perhaps optimistically under these circumstances, they also commissioned a new bookplate by the renowned artist Sebastian Evans.

Braddon had clearly been forgiven by this point, as six of her novels appear in the new catalogue (including her most famous Lady Audley’s Secret and Aurora Floyd). The catalogue also features five novels by Wilkie Collins, as well as popular fiction by Rhoda Broughton, Ouida, Ellen Wood and Marie Corelli. The library continued to add titles by Braddon and Collins until at least 1911. Despite her status as a Kent resident, Sarah Grand seems to have counted as a bridge too far – not one of her novels appears in these catalogues.

The continued use of an ‘indicator’ in 1915 suggests the continuing control exerted over readers. This device was based on a system of shutters that opened and closed to show if a book was available for borrowing. Crucially, the indicator was only necessary under the old Victorian system, whereby readers found a book in the catalogue and then requested it from the librarian. It had been superseded by the open access system in Folkestone by 1910. In less draconian mode, in the same year the Canterbury library opened its reading rooms on Sunday evenings for the sole use of soldiers. In an intriguing comment on the presence of WW1 combatants in the city, the librarian ‘stated that he had not had a single complaint from the soldiers, who had acted as gentlemen.’

But strict interpretation of the rules continued to cause problems well into the twentieth century. In 1938 the novelist Nora Salmon found herself unable to borrow books because she had a Harbledown address. She was rescued by the intervention of Councillor Stone and Canterbury’s first female mayor Catherine Williamson, who agreed that it was ‘nice to have a lady of considerable literary distinction in their midst’.

Bibliography

28th annual report. Folkestone Free Library 1909-10. Uncatalogued ephemera box. Folkestone Library.
The Beaney Bookplate 1899: Explored and Explained by Alan Barber. Tales from the Magazine Room: Book 4. Unpaginated. Canterbury Library. C741.69.
‘The Cabinet of Curiosities’ Catalogue of the Canterbury Municipal Free Library in the Museum, Guildhall Street. 1881 [front cover dated 1882]. Canterbury Library. C017.5.
Catalogue of Books in the Lending Department of Canterbury Free Library (the Beaney Institute): 1899, 1903, 1906, 1908, 1911, 1915. Canterbury Library. C017.5.
‘Folkestone Public Library: What the Public Will See on Friday’. [1910]. Uncatalogued ephemera box. Folkestone Library.
Greenwood, Thomas. Public Libraries: A History of the Movement and a Manual for the Organization and Management of Rate-Supported Libraries. Fourth edition. London: Cassell & Company, 1891.
‘Laying the First Beaney Stone.’
The Library. Vol 1. Sir John Young Walker MacAlister, ‎Alfred William Pollard, ‎Ronald Brunlees McKerrow. 1889.
Report of the Canterbury Philosophical and Literary Institution. 1827.
Vindex. ‘Boycotting Miss Braddon.’ Kentish Gazette. 13 September 1887. 8.
What is to become of Miss Braddon?’ Kentish Gazette. 24 September 1887. 8.
‘Soldiers as readers at Canterbury.’ Tuesday Express. 16 March 1915. 1.

References