The English coastal city of Brighton and Hove has a long and varied history of libraries going back over 250 years. Subscription libraries were among the earliest buildings in the resort of Brighton, which developed in the late 18th century; by the 1780s these facilities, which were more like social clubs than conventional book-borrowing venues, were at the heart of the town's social scene. The Brighton Literary Society, its successor the Brighton Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and its rival the Sussex Scientific Institution between them established a "very fine collection" of publications by the mid-19th century, and these books were donated to the town when a public library was founded in 1871. Neighbouring Hove, originally a separate village, established its own public library in 1890.
Public libraries in the city are run by the Royal Pavilion, Museums and Libraries department of Brighton and Hove City Council. Branch libraries operate in the outlying villages and suburbs of Coldean, Hangleton, Hollingbury, Mile Oak, Moulsecoomb, Patcham, Portslade, Rottingdean, Saltdean, Westdene, Whitehawk and Woodingdean. The Brighton and Hove Toy Library is at the Whitehawk Library, rebuilt and reopened in 2011. The city council also operated a mobile library until 2013. Library membership is not limited to residents of the city, and gives borrowing rights at libraries throughout the city. Free internet access was introduced in 2001.
Nationally, libraries have experienced declining usage and funding cuts in recent decades, but Brighton and Hove's libraries have seen significant investment in the 21st century. Jubilee Library in central Brighton was opened in March 2005 to replace outdated split-site facilities nearby, which included a separate music library. It is England's sixth busiest: about 1 million people visited in 2009. New branch libraries have been built in the Coldean, Mile Oak, Whitehawk and Woodingdean suburbs, either as standalone buildings or as part of other community facilities. The library at Mile Oak is due to close in July 2023.
Private and subscription libraries
Brighthelmstone on the Sussex coast in southeast England developed from a farming and fishing village into the fashionable leisure destination of Brighton from the mid-18th century. The town quickly attracted "all of the facilities that would have been expected" of a resort of that era. Among those were the proprietary libraries, also known as circulating libraries. In Brighton's earliest days as a resort, these privately owned facilities functioned as multi-purpose "informal meeting places" where visitors could "read, chat, listen to music, buy fripperies or gamble". Visitors would pay a subscription to become a member of the library for the season, and would write their names in a visitors' book. By doing so they would inform other visitors of their presence in Brighton, the length of their stay and where they were staying, facilitating social interaction. By the 1760s, Brighton's Master of Ceremonies also consulted the visitors' books from the various libraries to find out who was staying in the town and make contact with them. From the 1770s, when speculators built permanent theatres in the town, the libraries also sold tickets for performances, for which they received a commission.
The first true library in Brighton opened in or before 1760 on the Steine (now Old Steine), although a bookshop existed from 1759 on East Street. Baker's Library was the first building erected on the east side of the Steine: it stood on the south corner of the present St James's Street, where St James's Mansions stand now. Its proprietor was Mr E. Baker of Tunbridge Wells, another 18th-century resort town. A small wooden building with a veranda and an attached rotunda for musicians to perform in, "it was more like a club" than a modern library: its other features included billiards tables. It was enlarged in 1806, necessitating the demolition of the original building.
By the end of the 1760s a second library had opened, also named after its proprietor. Originally called Thomas's Library after its proprietor R. Thomas, it was also known as Brighthelmston Circulating Library. Later, following a change of proprietor, it was known as Miss Widgett's Library and was described by author Fanny Burney, a regular visitor to Brighton in the late 18th century: her journals made reference to "Widget the milliner and librarywoman". Also a timber building, it rose to two storeys and was fronted with a colonnade of Doric columns. Brighton's post office was here for about 20 years until 1803. Both libraries are shown in an engraving produced in 1778, in which Baker's Library stands alone on the east side of the open ground of the Steine. Thomas's Library was on the southwest side of the Steine near the present Royal York Hotel. Neither library survived beyond the 1820s.
Development soon spread eastwards along the East Cliff, and one of the first buildings there was Donaldson and Wilkes' Library (1798). This later took the name Tuppen and Walkers' Library. It occupied a site between Charles Street and Manchester Street. Donaldson became the Prince of Wales's official librarian and bookseller in 1806. Other contemporary libraries situated along the East Cliff were the New Steine Library, Pollard's on Marine Parade and Parsons' on the same road. The Royal Marine Library, meanwhile, faced the Chain Pier and kept telescopes for visitors to look out to sea. The focal point for these early libraries, though, remained the Steine, North Street and the square that linked them, Castle Square. In this area were the Castle Square Circulating Library; Eber's; Minerva; Folthorp's; Large's; Loder's; and Wright and Son's Royal Colonnade Library, Music Saloon and Reading Rooms. Loder's Library specialised in scientific publications and had 20,000 volumes, and Wright and Son stocked 8,000. It also kept national newspapers and British and foreign journals and periodicals. Raggett's Subscription House stood opposite Baker's Library on the north side of St James's Street and was a similar institution. Several of these libraries struggled financially in the 1780s, and some proprietors diversified into other activities to try to keep them open.
As Brighton grew beyond its historic centre in the 19th century, small subscription libraries (many of them short-lived) opened elsewhere: on East Street, Middle Street and Ship Street in The Lanes; St James's Street and High Street in the Kemptown area; Queen's Road and Gardner Street in the North Laine area near Brighton railway station; Preston Street, Norfolk Square, Western Road and King's Road on the West Cliff to the west of the Steine; and in the poor Carlton Hill area. Subscription libraries declined in popularity in the 20th century, but one survived until 1975 on Lewes Road.
Societies and institutions
In terms of the breadth and quality of its content, Brighton's "first important library" was that belonging to the Brighton Literary Society. It was founded 1812 by influential residents including George Wagner, brother of the Vicar of Brighton Henry Michell Wagner. The society gained new strength in the mid-1830s when John Cordy Burrows (later to be Mayor of Brighton and a Freeman of the Borough) and Dr Henry Turrell (proprietor of a "famous" early-19th-century private school in the town) joined. Around the same time, geologist and palaeontologist Gideon Mantell moved to Brighton and founded the Mantellian Institution, which also had its own library at South Parade (now part of Old Steine). Later known as the Sussex Scientific Institution and Mantellian Museum, and partly funded by George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, its library contained mostly scientific books. The institute also offered lectures, a reading room and a museum dedicated to Mantell's research.
The Brighton Literary Society became defunct in the early 1840s but a new body was soon set up by its leading members. The Brighton Royal Literary and Scientific Institution was based in an annexe of the Royal Albion Hotel and had "a useful existence of 28 years". Its library collection gradually built up over this time: in 1842 it acquired the Mantellian Institution's collection, and it raised money to buy other works by holding popular lectures on scientific and historical subjects and by organising soirées and exhibitions at the Royal Pavilion. The Institution's extensive and "very fine collection" of books formed the basis of Brighton's first public library.
Public libraries An attempt to found a public library in Brighton after the passing of the Public Libraries Act 1850 failed, and no more was done until 1869. In that year, Brighton Corporation established the town's first public library in rooms at the Royal Pavilion. It was an adjunct to a small museum created in the Pavilion seven years earlier, which consisted of various artworks and objects collected by the Corporation since it was formed. This was only a temporary facility, though, because in 1871 the Corporation converted the former Royal Stables on Church Street near the Pavilion into a library, museum and art gallery. P.C. Lockwood, the Borough Surveyor, undertook the work; he maintained the opulent Moorish/Indo-Saracenic Revival style of architecture employed when the stables were built in 1804–08 by William Porden.
The library's book collection grew rapidly through donations: many "local worthies [gave] or bequeathed their [personal] libraries to the town", perhaps motivated by the impressive building which now served as the library. More room was needed—although the library, museum and art gallery complex was large, the library was confined to two upper rooms—and in 1894 the building was altered to provide a large lending library and reading rooms on the ground floor and a reference library, containing rare material, at first-floor level. The extended library opened in November 1901.
Brighton Library thrived in the early 20th century as the Corporation received a series of donations and bequests of national importance. Wealthy Withdean resident L.M. Bloomfield's collection of 13,000 works included some of the earliest printed works in existence, ancient illuminated manuscripts and original editions of many books. In 1918 J.G. Lewis's vast collection of foreign works came to the library, and money from his estate was invested in a fund to be used for the purchase of further works. Another financial bequest in 1930 was to be reserved for the purchase of rare works "of special character". By the mid-20th century, Brighton's reference library contained "one of the richest collections in the whole country". In its present form, the "rare books and special collections" of Brighton & Hove Libraries runs to 45,000 volumes and is housed in Jubilee Library.