City Libraries

It was not, however, until 1791 that the Coventry Literary (or Library) Society was founded to conduct a subscription library. It was housed first in a building at the north-east corner of Broadgate (fn. 40) next to the Castle Inn, but in 1829 was reopened in a former chapel in Hertford Street. (fn. 41) In the early 1830s it had about 200 members. (fn. 42) Working-class interest in cultural matters can be seen clearly as early as the late 1820s and the 1830s, but the impetus to organized activity came from the middle class. There were adult schools in Coventry in 1815, held in private houses. They then had 103 'learners' who were 'very fond of the Bristol Spelling Book for Adults' as well as 45 who had learned to read the testament. (fn. 121) It was, however, the Mechanics' Institution, founded in 1828, which was the chief means of advancement for young weavers in the 1830s, and many of them were members. It provided them with classes in writing, arithmetic, geometry, geography, grammar, and music. (fn. 122) As well as several classrooms, the institution's building in Hertford Street (acquired by 1834) possessed a museum, a library, a reading room, and a lecture hall capable of holding 500. The library had some 2,000 volumes in 1838. The reading room was said to be very popular and in 1850 was supplied with four daily papers and many periodicals. The museum was founded in 1834 and soon acquired a substantial, if unselective, collection. (fn. 123) A growth of library facilities also occurred during this period. In 1850 the Coventry Library Society had about 10,000 books together with a news and reading room providing London and provincial weeklies. In 1840 there were 145 subscribers, and by 1850 about 200. In the 1860s, however, the institution declined. (fn. 214) This was probably a result of the economic depression combined with the high subscription of one or two guineas, rather than of any fall in the demand for reading matter. When the society was eventually forced to close in 1866, its volumes were bought from funds raised by public subscription (fn. 215) and in 1868 the library was reopened by the corporation as a free public library. Over 4,000 persons registered as borrowers and more than 60,000 volumes were issued in the first year. (fn. 216) The establishment of a civic library open to all was perhaps symptomatic of a change in the attitude towards working-class educational advance. Joseph Gutteridge was astonished when in the 1850s his employer deigned to discuss botany with him and gave him copies of the Edinburgh Review and the Westminster Review 'notwithstanding our different social positions', for he felt at that time that the educated few were 'jealous lest their inferiors should taste of the tree of knowledge'. (fn. 217) Now Gutteridge sat with three other working men on the committee of the Free Library, side by side with John Gulson, mayor in 1868, who presented the city with a site for a new library building. (fn. 218) The Gulson Library replaced the Hertford Street building and was opened in 1873 on the site of the disused gaol and adjoining County Hall. It included a reading room and a circulating library and a new wing was added in 1890 to serve as a reference library. (fn. 219) As a consequence the library of the Coventry Institute, formed in 1855 as an amalgamation of the Mechanics' Institution and the Religious and Useful Knowledge Society, became less important. The Institute's museum appears to have been dispersed about 1882. Like the old Mechanics' Institution the Coventry Institute had by 1871, few of the artisan class' amongst its members, who were mostly 'middle and upper class'. Lectures continued to be given and classes, including some in science, but the institute came to approximate more and more to a literary centre and social club. It lasted until 1888 when the building in Hertford Street was sold and the institute was amalgamated with the new Technical Institute. (fn. 220)