'Don't Have a Library Rate Thrust Upon You': The Libraries Acts Debate in Whitby, 1878

Abstract

This paper examines the doomed attempt to adopt the Libraries Acts in Whitby in I878. Comparatively few detailed accounts of the actual debates through which the ratepayers of Victorian Britain decided whether to adopt the Acts have been published. Whitby's stormy free library debate cut across religious and political affiliations. The deciding factor in the town's decision to reject the adoption of the Acts appears to have been class. Whitby's shrinking and almost exclusively male elite were predominantly in favour of adoption, whereas the majority of Whitby's broader middle classes (including most women) and its working-class ratepayers remained unconvinced. The free library supporters were more organized, comparatively more eloquent and generally more principled. Nevertheless, they were defeated largely over the single issue of the cost of providing something mainly perceived by Whitby's ratepayers as an unnecessary luxury. By examining the people involved, and looking at what they said and did in some detail, this paper on the Libraries Acts debate in Whitby uncovers how a fundamental educational and cultural battle was fought out in the past. It shows how different people in a declining British industrial town saw themselves, and outlines the different things they considered to be important in their society. The debate demonstrates graphically that in a climate of economic and industrial decline, arguments in favour of free public provision of services for the whole community can be decisively rejected by the public.