Bromley House Library
The Bromley House Library (originally the Nottingham Subscription Library) is a subscription library in the United Kingdom.
Premises
The library is housed in Bromley House, a Georgian townhouse in the centre of Nottingham. This building is grade II* listed[1][2] and retains many original features. It was built in 1752 as a town house for George Smith, grandson of the founder of Smith's Bank, the oldest known provincial bank in the United Kingdom.
In the first-floor 'Standfast Library' is a Meridian Line, dating from 1836 and used to set clocks to Noon 'local' time in the days before Railway time or Greenwich Mean Time was introduced as the British standard. The longcase clock in the room is still set to Nottingham time, 4 minutes and 33 seconds slower than Greenwich.
History
The library was founded in 1816 at Carlton Street. In April 1820, Bromley House was offered for sale by auction and purchased by the library for £2,750 (equivalent to £233,860 in 2021).[3] The library moved in in 1825.[4]
In the 19th century the library had around a hundred subscribers, including George Green and Edward Bromhead. Historically, the first name on the list of subscribers was the Duke of Newcastle as Lord Lieutenant of the county.
Library services
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As of January 2015[update] the library has over 1,300 members who pay an annual subscription. Items on loan are still recorded using a manual ledger system where each member has their own page. The library has a stock of over 40,000 books (expanding by 700-800 each year) which includes a good selection of interest to local historians, and a wide selection of 19th and 20th century novels. It also contains more modern items such as audiobooks and CDs. The Heritage Lottery Fund contributed towards a project to create the library's computer catalogue 'Bromcat'. This involved a team of staff and volunteers cataloguing the entire contents over a two-year period, completing the work in 2013.
Librarians
- William Hardy 1816 - 1819[5]
- Valentine Kirk 1819 - 1820
- James Archer 1820 - 1834
- John Walton 1834 - 1857
- Count Ubaldo Marioni 1857 - 1865
- John Cummings Banwell 1867 – 1893
- J William Moore 1893-1899
- Arthur Lineker 1899-1926
Further reading
- Coope, Rosalys (1991). 'Bromley House 1752 - 1991. Four essays celebrating the 175th Anniversary of the foundation of the Nottingham Subscription Library. Nottingham: Nottingham Subscription Library. ISBN 0-9517499-0-0.
External links
References
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-35831853
- ^ Historic England. "ANGEL ROW Nos.13, 14 AND 15 Bromley House (1246247)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
- ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved June 11, 2022.
- ^ "Bromley House Library, One Hundred Years Old To-Day". Nottingham Evening Post. British Newspaper Archive. 1 April 1916. Retrieved 9 September 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
{{cite news}}: Unknown parameter|subscription=ignored (|url-access=suggested) (help) - ^ "Bromley House Library Librarians 1819-1927". Bromley House Library. Retrieved 9 September 2016.
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