This paper is based on a recent successful doctoral thesis (University of Birmingham) which investigated the place of the free public library in the civic cultural landscape of one Victorian industrial town during a period of growing municipal activism. It discusses the establishment of Birmingham’s public library service and argues that its establishment played a significant part in the philosophy of the nonconformist minister, George Dawson (1821-1876), whose call for municipal improvement – his Civic Gospel – involved providing for the cultural as well as the physical needs of Birmingham’s citizens. Dawson wanted to see a city that ‘cares as much for the culture of her people as for the sweeping of her streets’, believing that access to books was as important as the provision of sanitation.
This talk will briefly discuss the extent to which a culture of book lending existed in the town before the arrival of the first public library in Birmingham; the motives of those individuals who campaigned for – or were involved in - their administration, particularly its first Chief Librarian, John Davies Mullins; the physical representation of the public library in the town, looking at what their architectural style and interior design tells us about the expectations and values of those involved in their planning.
