Liverpool public libraries : a history of fifty years / by Peter Cowell, chief librarian.
- Cowell, Peter, 1838-1909
- Date:
- 1903
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Liverpool public libraries : a history of fifty years / by Peter Cowell, chief librarian. Source: Wellcome Collection.
19/266 (page 3)
![England; no library to which a sailor could go and ask, with the certainty of being accommodated, to look at a Nautical Almanac—where a clergyman might go and refer to a Clergy List—or where a merchant or other person might go and be able to see Pigot’s Directory.” On March 15th, 1849, Mr. Ewart presented to the House of Commons two petitions from the inhabitants of Birmingham, complaining of the want of public libraries. In bringing these before the House, he stated in the course of his speech, that he “ believed that the want of such institutions had been a serious damage to our literature. While for a hundred years the writers of the Continent had the consultation of public libraries at their command, those of England had wanted them. Gibbon, in his correspondence, had complained that ‘ the greatest metropolis in the world was destitute of that useful institution—a public library.’ It was stated in one of the works of the father of an Hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) that, in his time, readers were kept waiting two days for a book at the British Museum. Again, let them take the case of Mr. Roscoe, at Liverpool, who was obliged to form his own library before he could compose such works as the Life of Lorenzo, or of Leo X., &c.” The Hon. Gentleman concluded by proposing the following motion: “ That a Select Committee be appointed [on existing Public Libraries in Great Britain and Ireland, and] on the best means of extending the establishment of Libraries freely open to the public, especially in A2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24866866_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
