A new chapter for Darlington library as it prepares to reopen

CHAPTER 1: THE REFERENDUM

DARLINGTON library is named after Edward Pease (1834-1880) (above) who suffered such poor health that he couldn’t bear to work in his family’s filthy industries so he split his time between his healthy estates in Worcestershire and Braemar where he indulged his passions for mule-breeding, fruit-farming and forestry.

But Edward – whose father, Joseph, is memorialised by a statue on High Row – believed libraries were a force for good, so in 1869, he commissioned two Darlington clergymen to spend a week touring the country, visiting “free libraries” – a new concept which, paid for through the rates, offered townspeople free access to books.

The clergymen reported back that libraries were a very good thing, but not everybody agreed. The Darlington and Stockton Times said: "The Free Library contest in Darlington waxes hotter and more bitter. The promoters seem determined to thrust their schemes down the popular throat, and the popular throat seems as determined to reject them."

In the first edition of The Northern Echo – January 1, 1870 – Edward paid for an advert urging the ratepayers of the town to vote yes in a referendum on the subject that was held on March 1, 1870.

But by 1,240 votes against to 932 for, with 814 neutral, the ratepayers voted against the library and the idea was shelved.

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CHAPTER 2: THE LIBRARY & THE LYMINGTONS

ON June 13, 1880, Edward died in the five-star Hotel Schweizerhof in Lucerne, Switzerland, where he had gone for the sake of his health. He left the bulk of his share of the family fortune to his orphaned 14-year-old daughter, Beatrice (above), who became a paper multi-millionaire, but he also left £10,000 (very nearly £1m in today’s values) "for the education of the poorer classes either by establishing or founding or assisting in establishing or founding a Free Library".

A second referendum was held – essentially asking whether Darlington would like a gift of £10,000 to spend on a library – and this time 3,420 voted yes with only 599 against so, shortly afterwards, on June 4, 1884, the library foundation stone was laid amid great ceremony by Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease.

Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease laying the foundation stone of the Edward Pease Free Library on June 4, 1884. Below: The trowel Sir Joseph used to lay the stone

He was Edward’s brother and he had adopted 18-year-old Beatrice, who had come to live with him and his children at his mansion, Hutton Hall, near Guisborough. One of his sons had brought a friend home from Oxford University who had begun dating one of his daughters. But when the friend – Newton Wallop, Viscount Lymington who was heir to the Earl of Portsmouth – learned of orphan Beatrice’s huge inheritance, he fell in love with her.

Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease (1828-1903)

On October 25, 1885, Beatrice helped her uncle, Sir Joseph, ceremonially open the new Edward Pease Free Library in Darlington with a crowd of guests watching from a specially constructed platform and grandstand where the mini-roundabout is today. Beatrice, 19, was accompanied by her new husband, Viscount Lymington, 31, who gave a speech from the platform in which he said: “A library ought to be a club of the best minds of all times.”

An Edwardian postcard showing the original northern portion of Darlington library

The library had been designed by Darlington’s most eminent architect, GG Hoskins, with the tympanum over the main door featuring the coat-of-arms of the Peases and the town plus Minerva, the goddess of learning, and a wise owl with a book in its claws. In the vestibule was a white marble sculpture of Edward Pease.

Lady Lymington said: "It gives me greatest pleasure to be here today and to declare this building open (Applause). It was, as you know, bequeathed to you by my dear father, and I feel sure that his trustees, my uncles, have fulfilled his bequest entirely as he would have wished. (Loud cheers)".

No one disagreed. The Northern Echo said that the day marked the opening of an institution which would “radiate intelligence to the present and future generations, whose benefits are to be circumscribed to no class or condition, and whose use is to the free privilege of rich and poor.

“It is the most democratic agency of the democratic age. It caters for young and old, student and idler. Its hospital portals are open to all, and its beneficent influence is felt by all.”

The library contained 10,500 books which were looked after by the first librarian, Frank Burgoyne, who earned £130-a-year. He had two assistants and a caretaker and between them the kept the library open from 11am to 9pm five days a week plus 11am to 1pm on Wednesdays. The books were kept in the centre of the library with their names displayed on racks around the room. If a borrower spotted a book they fancied, they’d ask the librarian for it. The librarian would check that they were not on a list of infected people supplied by the Medical Officer of Health – books spread diseases – and then issue it to them.

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Lady Lymington inspected the library, which included a ladies reading room where illustrated magazines about royalty and other “matters chiefly of interest to the gentler sex” were kept.

Then she and her husband and Sir Joseph went to the Trevelyan Hotel, on the corner of Blackwellgate and Grange Road, for luncheon and more speeches. There was an evening meeting in the Mechanics Institute for more speeches and such was the enthusiasm that there was an overflow meeting in the Friends Meeting House where the speeches were repeated probably for the fourth time that day.

Lord Lymington, who married Beatrice Pease, and became the 6th Earl of Portsmouth

This was probably the last cordial meeting between Sir Joseph and Lord and Lady Lymington. Egged on by husband and hot-shot London lawyers, Beatrice demanded every penny of her inheritance – about £30m in today’s values – which meant Sir Joseph had to sell off assets at a time when the coal trade was in recession. It took nearly two decades for them to reach a settlement, which drove Sir Joseph to the brink of bankruptcy – other events, including finding £1m to endow the library – pushed him over the brink in 1902, effectively finishing the Peases dominance of Darlington.

CHAPTER 3: THE EXTENSION

THE original library was only the half at the Wilko’s end. In 1899, the council bought land to the south for an extension and, belatedly, in 1928, it designed a two-storey contemporary library to go on it.

However, after controversy, inquiry and delay, they decided to replicate Hoskins’ design which they did so well you can barely see the join.

Not everyone was happy. The Echo’s sister paper, the Northern Despatch, fumed that the extension was “built in an out-of-date Victorian style – wasteful of space, wasteful of money, "beautified" with many trivial scrolls, pillars, urns and garlands – which has taken two years to construct”. Better it said to have built the two-storey 1930s library and then knock down the Victorian one and build a matching contemporary wing.

March 27, 1933, Crown Street, Darlington: the opening of the extension of Darlington library. From left, Charles Urie Peat MP, Mayor Sir Charles Starmer, and Annabella Maw, who turned the key (below)

The extension was opened on March 28, 1933, by Annabella Maw, the wife of the chairman of the library committee, Cllr Herbert Maw, who used a ceremonial key which was returned to the library in 2011 from Todmorden.

The mayor, Sir Charles Starmer, said: "Everyone in the town can use this wonderful university, for that is what a library means to the people of the town."

The party which opened the library extension in 1933

CHAPTER 4: BREXIT & THE LIBRARY

ON February 4, 2016, with central government cutting the amount of money it gave Darlington council by 40 per cent, council leader Bill Dixon announced a £12.5m package of cuts which included shutting the library and transferring a reduced library operation to the Dolphin leisure centre. This would save £310,000-a-year.

A “save our library” campaign became the focal, and vocal, point for opposition to the cuts but the Labour group voted through the closure.

In the June 2017 election, Labour’s Jenny Chapman held her seat as MP but promised to “chain myself to the railings” to prevent the library building from being sold.

Friends of Darlington Libraries campaigners launch their petition beneath GG Hoskins's masterful tympanum

A newly-formed friends group launched legal challenges against closure. Although they lost, they bought enough time for the Labour group to change leaders and in September 2018, new leader Stephen Harker announced that the library would not close and instead it would be renovated.

It was not enough. In the May 2019 local elections, Labour lost control of the council to a Conservative-led coalition, and even when Prime Minister Boris Johnson called a general election in December 2019, the library was still a potent local issue. A Guardian newspaper profile of the marginal town was headlined: “The leave-voting seat where the library matters as much as Brexit.”

In the election, Ms Chapman lost her seat to Conservative Peter Gibson.

Save the library campaigners at Darlington town hall

On November 19, 2021, the council announced a £3.2m 15-month renovation to bring the Victorian library into the digital age – which timetabled a reopening for May 2022 to coincide with the local elections.

However, unforeseen complications extended the project to 22 months with the library being completely closed for an unscheduled 11 months.

Next Saturday, the public will get their first chance to see the transformation to their “beloved” library. It is ironic that the renovations have gone on so long that Labour now leads the council once again.

Having had a hand in the Peases losing their fortune at the end of the 19th Century, you could write a book on the library’s role in the changing political fortunes of the early 21st Century – but would it ever feature on the “most borrowed” list?

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