CHAPTER 4 - School Libraries 1830–1850

Abstract

This chapter discusses the school libraries of 1830–1850 in England and Wales. The S.P.C.K. introduced lending libraries into national and parochial schools from 1831. It levied an annual per capita subscription of 6d., and encouraged the formation of libraries by grants of books to the value of £5, on condition that an equal sum was raised by each school. By 1835, the S.P.C.K. had established 2438 such libraries in England, and 33 in Wales. The R.T.S. issued an address to the public on the subject of the formation of libraries in schools in 1832, and in that year began a scheme of library grants to all well recommended cases, so that by 1849 grants had been received by 3108 libraries in Great Britain and Ireland. School libraries did not serve a common purpose. Many of them were used in curricular activity, while most were provided for leisure reading. Almost 50% of the schools of the British Society possessed small libraries but the books were mainly for home reading; and in the ragged school at Marylebone the practice was to encourage reading on the premises.