Giant Places:
Wellington Library
Wellington’s former public library has a starring role in the town’s literary story as the location where Philip Larkin not only started his professional career as a librarian but also wrote much of his early work. However, its local heritage connections go a lot further back.
Beginnings
When Hesba Stretton, in her 1860 article Manchester Free Libraries, extolled the benefits of opening such facilities in smaller communities, the soon-to-be best-selling author no doubt had her hometown of Wellington in mind. As she pointed out, under the Libraries Act of 1855 all districts with a board of improvement commissioners (a Victorian forerunner of the modern council) and a population of over 5000 “shall have the option of establishing such a library by levying a penny in the pound upon the rates of the district.”
Wellington would in fact have to wait until the summer of 1902 for its public library to arrive, which opened in the former Parish Workhouse in Walker Street. The facility’s early years were marked out by struggle, no more so than in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, when despite very high rates of lending it was almost bankrupt — the council’s original penny rate having to be doubled to bolster its inadequate stock of books.
Really Filthy
When Philip Larkin arrived in November 1943 the situation was almost unchanged. Despite an attempt at modernisation during 1930s (when the doors of the previously ‘closed access’ institution were finally opened to readers), the new librarian found the shelves of the cold, gas-lit library piled high with long withdrawn stock. However, what he also discovered was a readership hungry for books — in one instance, Larkin recalled issuing 928 of them in 20 hours, or one every 77 seconds!
In January 1944, Larkin wrote his first report for the council committee charged with overseeing the library. In a letter to his parents, he outlined some of the adjectives he’d liked to have used to describe the library’s 4000-odd books: ‘really filthy’, ‘wretched’ and ‘totally inadequate’ were just a few of his choicest terms! Despite taking a more diplomatic approach, Larkin was essentially preaching to the converted. The committee, led by ‘forward-looking’ local schoolmaster Tom Cliff Buttrey, were keen to retain the local library’s independence from the county system, and viewed Larkin as something of a great white hope.
Book-Hungry Readers
Consequently, they provided the support he needed to improve the situation. While Larkin confessed, “almost anything one did was an improvement”, such was the response from “book hungry readers” he admitted he could never stop trying on their behalf (despite lamenting his own attempts to “thrust deep books into the unwilling hands of the public”). The results were impressive with huge increases in lending, some readers even giving up their Boots subscriptions to join the Walker Street facility (for the town had several commercial libraries). By April 1945, the hard-pressed librarian was even able to appoint an assistant, Greta Roden, of whom Larkin wrote in a letter to his mother “she is gradually assuming complete control of the library while I moon around thinking how unhappy I am”!
Book-Hungry Readers
Consequently, they provided the support he needed to improve the situation. While Larkin confessed, “almost anything one did was an improvement”, such was the response from “book hungry readers” he admitted he could never stop trying on their behalf (despite lamenting his own attempts to “thrust deep books into the unwilling hands of the public”). The results were impressive with huge increases in lending, some readers even giving up their Boots subscriptions to join the Walker Street facility (for the town had several commercial libraries). By April 1945, the hard-pressed librarian was even able to appoint an assistant, Greta Roden, of whom Larkin wrote in a letter to his mother “she is gradually assuming complete control of the library while I moon around thinking how unhappy I am”!
While that unhappiness would provide a rich source of inspiration for Larkin’s emerging literary career, it would eventually prove fatal to his residency at the library, which he left for a new job at the University of Leicester in August 1946. In a surprisingly sentimental development, Larkin retained several keepsakes from grateful readers and even returned one afternoon in 1956 to finds the facility closed. “I’d love to have gone in: inspected my erstwhile prison” he wrote to his parents. That opportunity arose in September 1962, when he was invited back to Walker Street to officially open the modern “split level and splendid” extension to the library. “The strain of keeping a smile on my face and not swearing for three hours was considerable” he wrote! However, for Larkin to attend such an event was in itself unusual, and as he later confirmed “the implication that I was not regarded by those concerned as an unfortunate episode best forgotten was so gratifying that I gladly accepted.”