CHAPTER ONE
Tarred with the same brush?
A review of library development in Britain, and its subsequent adaptation in America, Australia and New Zealand.
In the early 1840s much of Auckland city’s small population was scattered in an assortment of tents and roughly constructed raupo huts amongst the manuka and bracken along the southern shores of the Waitemata Harbour. Although this was scarcely the atmosphere in which to foster the establishment of institutions of culture, or to ensure the adequate safe keeping of even the most hardy of books, it was in these primitive conditions that a group of settlers endeavoured to establish the first library in the province in 1841.
For some of the settlers who ventured here, books were essential commodities in an environment where finding professional or practical assistance was not easy. Books on agriculture, medicine and religion had been carefully stored in their luggage, in a hope that they would provide a buffer against the problems ahead. Many of these books would become the foundation for the small libraries which proliferated throughout the province over the next six decades. As settlement began in earnest, schools, churches and libraries were the first public institutions to be constructed within the city. Some libraries came and went, surviving only a few years, before lack of money or support caused their closure. Nearly every small community dotted along the road from Auckland to the far north possessed what it called a ‘library’. While some ‘libraries’ consisted of no more than a dozen titles, others contained several hundred volumes.
Why did some settlers, who had come half way across the world in a bid to start a new life, consider it necessary to import the ideology of a cultural and intellectual institution, such as the library? To establish whether a continuation of the social reforms of Britain, or, whether local conditions, such as isolation, prescribed a need for library provision, is the purpose of this thesis.
This chapter examines how libraries in Britain were transformed during the early nineteenth century, culminating in the passing of the British Public Libraries Act in 1850, and the almost universal acceptance of the ‘free’ public library model by the early twentieth century. Using international literature, the cultural and intellectual contexts of library development in America and Australia have been examined to establish whether differing eras of colonization had any impact on library models. The literature suggests that although a social library model developed in America in the late eighteenth century, by the late 1840s America had joined Britain and Australia in promoting the concept of ‘free’, rate-supported public library. New Zealand adopted this model twenty years later.
In an examination of the public libraries in California, Lewis F. Steig located ten conditions necessary for the establishment of libraries. They are the economic ability to support a library, a system of universal education, an interest in self improvement and self culture, a favourable legal status, enlightened civic leadership, an urban population dense enough to make a library feasible, local pride, the support of organized religious and humanitarian groups, an interest in scholarship and a historical desire to preserve cultural heritage, and a system of social libraries. Of these ten, only six seem to have been relevant in the Auckland Province. These factors will be examined throughout the following chapters.
Until the late eighteenth century most libraries in Britain were either collections of books held by the church or parish, or were attached to institutions of higher learning. The church libraries, although ostensibly open to ‘all comers’, had a mainly clerical clientele as the books were generally religious in content. Some communities had been endowed with the personal library of a clergyman or country gentleman which was often placed under ‘the control of parochial authorities.’ These donated libraries ‘were too technical or above the reading level of users and [had] very few political, religious or works of fiction.’ They often ended up like the institutional libraries, which existed purely as storehouses, ‘rather than instruments for the spread of knowledge’. Access to most libraries was limited, and in many cases libraries had their books chained to the shelves to ensure that they were not removed (Figure 1).
In the cities and larger towns, books were available through ‘book clubs,’ which had been established in areas such as London from as early as 1700. Book clubs were often attached to coffeehouses, and some provided periodical reading rooms. Sidney Jackson suggests that it was from the concept of book clubs that the custom of providing reading rooms separate from libraries emerged.
Until the establishment of book clubs, and the founding of Literary and Philosophical Societies, there had been little offered to cater for the needs of the literary man. The books provided by the clergy tended to be purely religious and those readers seeking to locate works of higher scientific thought found the modest and unquestioning selection of books in parish collections lacking. Gentlemen’s clubs became increasingly popular with those who considered themselves part of the ‘enlightened’. These cultural clubs and societies provided not only reading rooms where men could enjoy newspapers and periodicals, but also a venue for debate on scientific, musical and artistic, or political issues. Kelly states that these clubs were not confined purely to London. Many of the wealthier provincial areas also took steps to provide ‘the cultural amenities of civilized life’.
There were some small subscription and circulating libraries functioning through booksellers. While the subscription library provided mainly travel, history and biographies, and a little standard fiction, the circulating library catered for those who required more entertaining literature, and ‘concentrated almost entirely on novels and romances.’ Both came at a cost to the potential borrower.
During the early nineteenth century libraries underwent radical changes. They became far more progressive, and actively sought patrons. Fuelled by an ‘ideology of unbounded social progress, of emancipation and self-realization’, they became institutions with a mission. The early 1820s saw the establishment of the mechanics’ institutes, and the development of secular libraries and working men’s movements. Just as English society had to adapt to the changes of increasing industrialization and urbanisation, libraries had to adapt to society with a steadily increasing literacy rate and a clientele which demanded less educational and more recreational literature. During this period the subscription and circulating libraries came into their own and the reduction in the cost of books brought literature closer to the mass reading audience. Books were no longer held to be the preserve of the wealthy few.
While most institutions, such as the subscription libraries and book clubs, remained out of reach of working-class readers, the working men’s clubs, eating houses and public houses became the venue for the shared reading of newspapers for the working-class male reader (Figure 2). The growth of working-class solidarity and a need to establish bonds outside work, meant that many public houses became venues for ‘friendly societies’ and confirmed ‘the continuing communal nature of working class recreation’. Peter Bailey suggests that ‘literate and intellectual interests coexisted with the more boisterous traditional recreations among a working class whose culture had been as much stimulated as disrupted by economic upheaval and social conflict’.
Accelerating literacy rates and increased leisure time for the working classes had brought disquiet to the ruling classes. The ruling class feared the implications of a disorganized spread of literacy and moved to ensure the suppression of self-learning by the creation of institutions, such as libraries, which would be under their control. The leisure and recreational pursuits of the working class became a contested ground. Middle class opposition to working class pursuits such as cock and dog fighting and a tendency to spend leisure time within the public house, manifested in the provision of organized, passive recreational pursuits such as picnics, Mechanics’ Institutes and sports days. Robert Snape suggests that a changing social structure meant that popular leisure was becoming increasingly associated with public disorder, drunkenness, violence and immorality Figure 3 illustrates the rivalry seen to exist between the public house and the public library.
London barrister, Frederick Liardet, undertook a survey of the villages at the centre of a workers’ uprising on 31 May 1838 in north east Kent and concluded that the problem ‘was essentially one of recreation. It was, he claimed, what the labouring poor read, and what they failed to read, in their homes after work, which lay at the root of the violence which had taken place.’ The problem, he suggested, did not lie in the fact that the poor did not have books, as his survey had shown that 52 percent of the houses of Dunkirk held books. The problem stemmed from ‘the absence of the right sort of literature and the correct attitude towards it.’ He considered that working class reading needed to come under stronger direction.
David Vincent suggests that Liardet’s research established that the traditional explanation for popular unrest was unfounded. The middle class fear of losing the ‘traditional means of installing discipline in the labouring poor’ fed Liardet’s pre-occupation with domestic reading. There was a feeling of distrust in the ability of the working class to organize ‘appropriate’ recreation. The middle class decided that working class should not be allowed uncontrolled access to knowledge as this could lead to challenges to traditional world views.
Snape suggests that although recreation during the Victorian era ‘embodied virtues of self-improvement and utility, [it] was expected to fulfill some positive purpose and not to be undertaken simply for relaxation and idle amusement’. It was this ideology which promoted the idea of libraries, although library historians agree that there was no single factor which brought about the introduction of the library model now known as the public library. Snape suggests that mechanics’ institutes and libraries were ‘hybrid institutions born of mixed motives of spreading technical education, promoting literacy and providing an improving form of recreation.’
The ideology behind the establishment of the Mechanics’ Institutes in 1820 was to give the working-class reader access to cultural and intellectual institutions. Through the efforts of Professor George Birkbeck, of the University of Glasgow, the blue collar worker was offered instruction ‘in the principles of the Arts they practice, and in the various branches of science and useful knowledge’. Birkbeck saw the need to provide adult education to the working classes in a bid to ‘produce more competent machine-minders while others simply sought to help the worker to "agreeably occupy his mental vacancy in the evening"’. He established free ‘mechanics’ classes, teaching elementary philosophy over a period of four years. After Birkbeck’s shift to London, his successor Dr. Ure continued his work and opened a library for the mechanics’ use. By 1826 the ideology had spread across Britain and 100 similar institutions had opened. They provided a variety of services. Some contained a reference library, reading room, workshop and a laboratory, and, in a few instances, a museum.
Before long it was clear that the lectures being offered by the institutes were aimed too high. It became necessary to go back to the basics. Practical lectures were replaced by items of general interest, ‘and in most institutes the main emphasis of teaching work shifted to classes in which more elementary instruction could be provided, from the three R’s upwards.’
Chartist William Lovett, who was involved in the formation of over a dozen libraries, advocated the need to extend adult learning. Lovett’s involvement with the early mutual improvement societies led him to believe in education as a natural right of man. He considered that ‘the education of adult workers should be placed in their own hands, without the oppressive supervision and censorship from above that rendered the atmosphere of the mechanics’ institutes so uncongenial to them.’ He considered it essential to establish libraries and reading rooms, in sufficient numbers, in towns and villages so that the young and old of both sexes would have free access to books at the end of a hard day’s labours. Black suggests that Lovett and his contemporaries considered the middle class founded libraries as centres of middle class power.
Institutes set up to be run by the working class, such as those advocated by Lovett and the newly founded Mechanics’ Institutes, had limited success. Peter Biskup suggests that the problem was that ‘the aims turned out to have little appeal for the mechanics, most of whom lacked the elementary education without which even basic scientific and technological studies were impossible.’ John Allred also criticizes the Mechanics’ Institutes, suggesting that they were not liberal in their spread of knowledge. He states that they served only to ‘impart the literacy and knowledge needed by modern technology without coercing the work-force away from its duty.’ Biskup asserts that, as the mechanics’ interests waned, the institutes were taken over by the better educated middle class. He states that ‘by the end of the 1840s only one institute member in twenty was a mechanic.’
Altick suggests that the ‘desire for knowledge of all sorts, political, economic, scientific, literary - was not a true proletarian phenomenon.’ It was the ‘populous class just above, whose members had their roots amongst the artisans and their aspirations among the solid middle class….who profited by mechanics’ institutes….[and they were] the people who bought cheap books and periodicals in great quantities.’
So, what did the working-class want, or expect in the form of literature and access to it? Liardet’s evidence has already suggested that there was some access to literature within the home. The drop in the cost of printing had brought the cost of newspapers within the financial reach of working-class groups. Edward G. Salmon claimed that Sunday was the really important day of reading. He stated that by the eighties ‘few working-class homes in England fail[ed] to ‘take in’ some kind of paper on the day of rest.’ Papers such as Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper sold three-quarters of a million copies on Sunday. In an article entitled ‘What the Working Class Read’, Salmon described what he saw behind the explosion of literature and reading in Britain in the nineteenth century. He stated that ‘when the duty on paper was removed, it was hardly a figure of speech to say that the literary floodgates were opened, and the land was swamped with publications of every degree of pretension and worth. Great Britain was to be socially, morally, and politically regenerated by the printing press.’
Salmon argued that a consequence of the lifting of the duty was the publication of lighter reading material, such as the penny novelette and popular literature, which made its way into the homes of the working classes. The outcome of this infiltration, he argued, was that the working classes ‘became the possessors of thousands of cheap volumes.’ He was also somewhat scathing about the efforts of the working class to seek out reading material. He proclaimed that if the newspaper was not delivered to the doorstep they would ‘seldom sally forth into the highways and by-ways of the literary world.’
The growing demand for recreational and entertaining material, including the increasingly popular novels and plays, encouraged the establishment of circulating libraries attached to booksellers. Booksellers such as Mudies, Smiths and Boots provided cheaper versions of ‘original editions of novels’, many of which were for pure ‘entertainment’. The novels, in the form of three volumes, cost ‘a guinea and a half … a cost which effectively priced them out of the market for the individual buyers,’ and were nicknamed three-deckers. Circulating and subscription libraries were able to satisfy public demands by providing a vastly different spectrum of writers than those previously available. The demand for lighter novels placed an increasing pressure on libraries to maintain a collection which ‘mirrored the attitudes and desires of the novel-reading public’. Critics suggested that their strictures emphasized the corruption of taste and idleness that libraries fostered.’
Alistair Black suggests that in Britain the reformist movement which supported the provision of ‘free’ public libraries was concerned more with delivering social reforms than education. The movement hoped that the public library would act as ‘an enabling institution, providing individuals and society with cultural enrichment, for the purpose of civilized development’ and in doing so that it would provide social and universal betterment. To this end the movement worked towards the encouragement of municipal provision of libraries and other recreational institutions.
The first attempt to introduce library legislation into the British Parliament was made by temperance member, James Silk Buckingham, in 1834. Buckingham persuaded the government to establish a Select Committee to inquire into the ‘extent, causes, and consequences of the prevailing vice of intoxication among the labouring classes of the United Kingdom,’and to consider possible remedies, to which he was appointed Chairman. When giving evidence to the Committee veteran London working-class leader Francis Place suggested that ‘the establishment of parish libraries and district reading rooms, and [provision of] popular lectures on subjects both entertaining and instructive to the community might draw off a number of those who now frequent public houses for the sole enjoyment they afford.’ Public libraries were seen as a device to channel the working class away from the public house towards rational recreation. By pursuing well rehearsed lines of questioning to support his reformist agenda, Buckingham ensured that the recommendations of the committee would be supportive of his Bill ‘to ‘authorize the erection of "Public Institutions, to embrace the means of diffusing Literary and Scientific Information, and forming Libraries and Museums in all towns".’
Although the legislation was never passed, the recommendations of the Select Committee were taken up by M.P.’s Joseph Brotherton and William Ewart. They recognized that if they were to provide libraries for the working class these libraries would need a constant and safe source of income, or they would fail. Only legislation could empower municipal government to collect tax to support ‘free’ libraries. ‘Free’ or tax supported libraries became the catch phrase of reformers such as Thomas Greenwood, Joseph Brotherton and Edward Edwards who took up the recommendations of the 1834 report.
Although there were differing ideologies concerning the provision of public libraries, it was the information gathered by Buckingham’s Select Committee Report on Drunkenness which provided the major impetus to a resolution moved by William Ewart in 1849 for the establishment of a Select Committee on Public Libraries. Once again the mover of the motion was appointed Chairman. Working closely with librarian Edward Edwards, Ewart ensured ‘that the Report was on the right lines. Ewart planned the general strategy, Edwards supplied the detailed material. Questions were carefully prepared, witnesses procured, statistics collected.’ After a great deal of evidence had been scrutinized, both nationally and internationally, the Committee tabled three reports, in 1850, 1851 and 1852.
The 1850 report became the basis for the Public Libraries Bill, which Ewart introduced later that year. It sought to extend the provision of library services by empowering ‘municipal authorities with a population of 10,000 or more (not all municipal authorities as Ewart had wished) to spend a 1/2d per pound rate on the provision of accommodation for a museum and/or library, and for the maintenance of the same, but did not permit any expenditure on books or specimens.’ Peter Bailey has pointed out that ‘the select committee on libraries maintained in their report that "donation[s] will abundantly supply the books",’ which meant that while the authority ‘grudgingly primed the pump, philanthropy was meant to complete the operation’. In 1855 the Act was extended to include Scotland and Ireland, and became more liberal, allowing the rate to be extended to one penny per pound, and applied to towns and districts with only 5,000 inhabitants.
The passing of the legislation was only a small step in the process of public library development. An amendment to the original Bill dictated that a poll had to be undertaken to gain support from over two-thirds of the ratepayers before a Council could apply the library tax. The Public Libraries Act, with its concept of providing free access to libraries for the working class, generated a great deal of public debate. Even after the legislation was passed there were problems with adoption of the act. Kelly stated that ‘in debates about adoption, in town after town throughout the country, we find rehearsed over and over again the arguments for or against public libraries which had taken part in Parliament over the original 1850 Act. As in Parliament the debate took place mainly among representatives of the middle classes, over the heads of the working classes for whom it was generally agreed that the libraries were intended.’
Opposition varied from those who considered the cost to the ratepayer was too high, to others who saw such ‘institutions as an extravagance leading merely to idleness and discontent.’ They questioned why they should support an institution where people merely sat around and read. Some were concerned that libraries might become places for the dissemination of popular discontent, while those who actively supported the public library advocated that libraries would contribute to ‘peace , order and prosperity of society.’ There was strong opposition from publicans, booksellers and the proprietors of circulating libraries who had a vested interest in preventing ‘free’ libraries from developing. Kelly suggests that ‘libraries were also denounced as spreaders of disease, disrupters of family life, and nurseries of socialism’ in a bid to prevent the provision of libraries for the working class. Figure 4 illustrates the strength of feeling against free libraries.
Those who were supportive wanted to guarantee that there would be control over the literature provided. They wanted to ensure that the material provided was ‘morally uplifting’. There was an underlying belief in the need for self-motivation, this was supported by one of the most generous library benefactors, American Andrew Carnegie, whose philosophy was that ‘ the library gives nothing for nothing, because it only helps those who help themselves, because it does not sap the foundation of manly independence, because it does not pauperise, because it stretches a hand to the aspiring and places a ladder upon which they can ascend by doing the climbing themselves. This is not charity.’ Both sides considered that public libraries would become working class institutions.
It was not until the seventies, after the passing of the Education Act, when the principle of universal education was adopted, that municipalities began to levy ratepayers for rate supported libraries. By 1886 as many as 125 local authorities had begun the process of library provision. This was mainly concentrated in urban industrial areas, which meant that over a quarter of the population gained access to free libraries. It was at about this time that the concept of public libraries moved away from their being social reformist and towards their being education providers. This was supported by changes in secondary and technical education and provisions for adult education.
The first libraries to develop in America’s colonies were similar to those the settlers had already experienced at ‘home.’ These were mainly parish or religious libraries. The first ‘public’ library came by way of a benefactor, Captain Kaeyne, who left £300 for the construction of a building in Boston, as a community meeting place and a library. In his will be also left his ‘3 great writing books’ by way of ensuring the library did not remain empty of reading materials. Shera suggests that the Boston Public Library was arguably a ‘public’ library, as prescribed by the Public Libraries Act. It was considered to be the common property of the town, and played a pivotal role in community affairs.
The similarities between the history of the British and the American libraries become clear in Shera’s analysis of the development of the public library in America. Shera suggests that there was a predominance of booksellers in Boston who harboured little interest in the intellectual or spiritual improvement of society and who provided rental libraries from as the early eighteenth century. By the mid-eighteenth century there was an increase in the use of ‘the tavern as a rendezvous for public discussion and the emergence of the intellectual importance of the social club, both directly imported from Britain, where they had gained even greater prominence.’
Shera argues that in America the library was established as a social agency rather than a social institution. He suggests that the early social or joint-stock libraries were not unlike the Mechanics Institutes which developed later in Britain. For many settlers the library became a venue to satisfy the need for group activity. The church had become too restrictive and the ‘literary circle and its library promised more latitude and greater possibilities for variation, and the members were probably as much interested in conviviality as in the knowledge to be obtained from the discussions.’ He suggests that while the social library catered to the more sophisticated requirements of the community, ‘their collections formed by men with a real enthusiasm for good literature, the co-existent circulating libraries reflected much more popular reading tastes, and their shelves were filled with fiction.’ He claims that this combination of services served the wealthier component of the community well, as membership was by payment of subscription.
Shera states that a movement began between 1825 and 1850 which ‘eventually replaced most of the social libraries with municipally owned institutions that were actually public both in support and in patronage’. The social library was successful in meeting public needs but it soon became ‘an anachronism born of the demands of a previous century but no longer in harmony with an age that attributed such importance to public concern for the education and welfare of the whole people.’ A loss of public interest saw the end of the social library in America and the development of the public libraries model.
On 24 January 1848, the Mayor and Councillors of the city of Boston ‘authorised an application to the state legislature for power to establish and maintain a public library’. An enabling act was signed by the governor on 18 March 1848. However, several years later the council still had not approved financial support for the library. Even so, Shera claimed that the passing of this statute was the first official government recognition of ‘the principle of municipal library support.’ The passing of library legislation in New Hampshire in 1848 and Massachusetts in 1851 was a turning point in American library history. He calculates that "between June 1851, and December, 1854, at least ten institutions were created by as many cities and towns in the state.’ The public library in America, according to Shera, was derived from European origins and aimed to promote ‘equality of educational opportunity, to advance scientific investigation, to save the youth from the evils of an ill-spent leisure, and to promote the vocational advance of the worker.’
Peter Biskup’s overview of the development of libraries in Australia states that, although colonization or ‘emigration’ to Australia began as early as 1788, there were few libraries worth mentioning before 1830. He cites Harrison Bryan’s four periods in the history of Australian libraries as points of reference. The period up to the 1830s Bryan labeled as ‘establishment in the face of colonial indifference.’ This period, Bryan stated, was ‘not characterized by any rapid flourishing of the mind.’ The first struggle was with the physical environment; the second was dictated by the character of the early settlers. ‘The new land was to be endured, to be fought, to be exploited. It was not a place for the setting down of roots, not even a place for leavening one’s daily toil with books.’ Biskup agrees, suggesting that even though the first fleet brought with it Australia’s first literature in the form of ‘treatises and manuals of the surgeons, navigators, surveyors and the judge advocate, the bibles and the prayer books of the chaplain, and the collection of specially selected books by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,’ that there was indeed a period of indifference in addressing the literacy needs of the working class ‘emigrants’.
The library models which emerged in Australia stemmed from those which already existed in Britain. They were based on imported notions of ‘parochial libraries for the poor, proprietary subscription libraries for the rich, and non-proprietary subscription libraries for the in-betweens.’ Biskup argues that it was because of feelings of transience in the colony, particularly among the wealthier officers, that institutions such as libraries were not a high priority. The first step towards the provision of a library for the poor ‘with souls in need of saving’was made by the Reverend Samuel Marsden in 1809 when he ‘appealed for donations of money and books for a public library consisting of "carefully selected books…suited to the poor settlers employed in agriculture, the soldiers and the convicts and all those who "have a disposition to improve their minds." ’
When Norman Lynravn looked back at the history of libraries in Australia, he suggested that there was a significant landmark in 1821 when a ‘consolidated, or union, catalogue of the libraries held by private citizens’ was compiled. He states it was from this handful of private collections that a slow but steady number of libraries began to emerge, beginning with subscription libraries in the twenties, developing during the thirties with the introduction of the mechanics’ institutes, schools of art and the literary institutes, and by the mid-fifties shifting to the public library model.
By 1827 the first Australian library was opened in Sydney. Described by Peter Biskup as a ‘proprietary subscription library for the well-to-do’ , the Australian Subscription Library and Reading Room opened with a collection of 1,000 volumes, and a five guinea joining fee. Its stock consisted of standard works of history, theology, biography, science and travel, with several of the works of Sir Walter Scott in the fiction category. Application was made to join.
By the twenties and thirties a variety of booksellers had established themselves in the colony, ‘often conducting a circulating library as well.’ Ordering books from Britain was a slow and expensive undertaking. Australian booksellers paid ‘London prices for their ware but received discount on bulk orders, and in turn themselves offered discounts to colonial libraries’. Nadel suggests that, even though Australian libraries were offered these incentives, they continued to order books straight from Britain for some time, using large London booksellers as their agents. The booksellers must have wooed the clientele because by ‘1855, there were 23 booksellers in Sydney, by 1860, there were 30.’ Access to new books was now guaranteed.
By the 1830s New South Wales and Tasmania had a number of settlers who ‘had brought with them notions of a library not known to the members of the first fleet - the mechanics’ institute library.’ The ideology behind the establishment of the institutes caught on quickly in Australia and Lynravn states that by 1900 there were approximately 1,000 libraries, including schools of art. He claims that there were ‘probably more than ever existed in Britain, and nearly half of those 1,000 were established in the ‘eighties and ‘nineties.’ It is interesting to note that at the time that the Mechanics’ Institutes in Britain were going into a decline, they were expanding rapidly throughout Australia. The original intentions of the institutes had faded by this stage and those established in Australia traded more upon the recreational than the educational pursuits of their members. By end of the century G.D. Richardson suggested that they were considered to be ‘generally of negligible value as sources of information or the means of serious study.
Biskup maintains that the first municipal libraries, similar to those established in Britain under the 1850 Public Libraries Act, emerged in Australia soon after the gold rushes in the 1850s. Legislation to provide local authorities with powers to levy a library rate and manage local amenities such as libraries, was introduced in different colonies from 1854. Biskup suggests that most legislation failed to recognize the need for the regular provision of funding. There continued to be an expectation on behalf of Governments, that after an initial payment for books was provided, the library would be managed through local funding. This lack of foresight was aggravated by the fact that ‘as a matter of government policy, [ public libraries were] reference and not circulating libraries (a crippling restriction in sparsely populated country districts)’. The narrow Government definition of a public library and library services ensured the continuation of Mechanics’ Institutes and subscription libraries far longer in Australian than elsewhere.
By the 1880s however, Australia had well and truly compensated for its slow beginning in library provision. In 1884 C.W. Holgate, a member of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, visited New Zealand and Australia. He spent six months in Australia and three in New Zealand examining the countries’ major libraries. In 1886 he published An Account of the Chief Libraries of Australia and Tasmania, and An Account of The Chief Libraries of New Zealand. Holgate reported that the Australian library was a vigorous institution, which was ‘modelled in many cases on our own, [and] look[ed] for encouragement and support from kindred institutions in the old country.’ He was clearly impressed with South Australia where ‘a "Mechanics’ Institute" was founded immediately upon the arrival of books.’ South Australia was a Wakefield settlement and had been settled in 1836. Forward planning had ensured that ‘an adequate and balanced collection [of books] arrived with the first colonists.’ Each town of importance, stated Holgate, had its Mechanics’ Institute and Library, most were affiliated with the South Australian Institute, ‘and are consequently on the road to progress’.
The Melbourne Public Library in Victoria also received high praise from Holgate. He wrote that ‘this Library, which exceeded all other Libraries in these colonies in size and value…has a history of progress quite unparalleled in the annals of modern Libraries.’ His only criticism was that the library had a poor ‘collection of works relating to the language, literature and history of Germany.’
As Holgate visited each state he made a detailed list of libraries and their problems or qualities. He suggested that a major problems faced by the colonial library was the printing of catalogues. Holgate cites a case at the Sydney Public Library where the librarian, Mr. Walker, spent a year preparing a catalogue which he gave to the Government Printer at the end of 1876, ‘who was not able to issue it until January 1878!’ A similar problem was faced at the Parliamentary Library in Brisbane where precedence was given to the printing of parliamentary papers.
In a review of library services in Australia undertaken in 1934, Ralph Munn and Ernest R. Pitt state that ‘Australia was better provided with local libraries in 1880 than it is today.’ They suggested that the basis for success was the unique attitude of the Australian government in providing funding for early libraries. However, this statement should perhaps be qualified, because it would seem that an Australian politician’s idea of library service was the provision of a reference library in each state capital, which left many hundreds of small towns with little in the way of library provision.
The status of the colonial library in New Zealand has been discussed by a number of librarians over the years. The first was Clifford Holgate followed many years later by John Harris, C.W. Tolley, James Traue, J.H. Sutherland, Wynne Colgan, Ruth Graham and Mary Ronnie to name a few. From their writing one gathers that there was an expectation among settlers that there should be provision for public amenities such as libraries, churches and schools in the colony. James Traue stated that the settlers ‘carried a virulent infection from nineteenth-century Britain in their trunks of books and it was not to be subdued by distance, salt water, or the shock of immersion in colonial life. After only some two decades of experiment and failure they opted to supplement self-help with state aid in the provision of libraries…to ensure their rights to books.’
Although some of the ‘libraries’ in the larger New Zealand settlements had been provided by settler associations, most libraries in the Auckland province were developed through community resourcefulness. Inspired by a desire to improve, the settlers developed subscription libraries modelled on the British concept of athenaeums or mechanics’ institutes. Limited resources and isolation prevented most libraries from providing an adequate service, even with the aid from Provincial Councils, or later with the aid of Government subsidies. While settlers in the larger towns often had their reading requirements supplemented by the commercial circulating library, those in isolated townships only had subscription libraries which were stocked with what could be acquired through donation and limited funding from subscriptions. Even so, expectations about the standard of the books which should be held in libraries, rather than concerns over a lack of quantity, were paramount.
When Holgate visited New Zealand in 1884 he travelled to both the North and South Islands, visiting libraries in the larger towns and cities. There is no mention in his report of the hundreds of small libraries which serviced the rural settlements. Holgate stated in his introduction that it was not his intention to compare services between provinces, rather to ‘place on record their position and value, at a time when intense interest in all the colonies, and their institutions, is being shown by the mother country.’ Even so, in his account of New Zealand libraries, he claimed that the Auckland Free Public Library was ‘destined to be the greatest of the public libraries in New Zealand.’ His only criticism was that the library needed to move quickly to acquire complete files of early newspapers and pamphlets relating to the colony. He quoted extracts of the Librarian’s Report for 1885 and suggested that it gave ‘one of the most satisfactory accounts of a public library that has come under our notice for a considerable time past.’
Holgate report summarized the history of the Auckland Public Library from its foundation in the Mechanics’ Institute in 1842 to its incorporation into the publicly rated system in 1880. The history of the library echoed the fate of many of those in Britain. The decline of the mechanics’ institutes facilitated the beginnings of the public library. Most institute collections became the foundation of public libraries. There was an expectation from Holgate that the fate of the Mechanics’ Institutes in New Zealand was already sealed. In his analysis of the future of the Wellington Athenaeum and Mechanics’ Institute he stated that although attempts to start a public library had failed twice, it was inevitable that the Institute would soon pave the way for a Free Public Library.
In his discussion on ‘library aspirations and colonial reality in New Zealand’, library historian James Traue discusses how Edward Wakefield and the New Zealand Company aimed at providing their settlers with an infrastructure which could support civilized living. The provision of books and libraries was part of an insurance policy that the tone and character of the model societies would be sustained. The Company indicated in its pamphlets that the formation of public Libraries in the colony was vital because without them ‘a high standard of civilization cannot be maintained.’
One of the interesting aspects of the New Zealand Company’s policy described by Traue was its inclusion of both a mechanics’ institute and a public library in its plan for Wellington. Because of the time frame it could be inferred that the public library envisaged was not the free rate supported model, which developed in the later part of the century. Although the Company supplied a library of books, the settlers were required to accommodate or house the ‘library’.
Over the last fifty years American library historians, such as Shera, have disputed whether the public library model which developed in the late nineteenth century was British in origin. The aim of this thesis is not to participate in this debate but to establish how, why and when the model was adapted, and how it evolved in New Zealand, in comparison to the other countries examined. Although Australia’s colonial library history predates New Zealand’s, the adoption of the public library model appears to have occurred at almost the same time as in Britain. This would suggest that information and ideas flowed easily between the colonies and Britain, and indicate that there was a strong desire on behalf of the colonists to reproduce institutions which provided stability and structure in the new colonies.
In his analysis of Holgate’s account of Australian libraries, Traue pinpoints one major area where the support for libraries in the colony was very different from in Britain. Traue states that Holgate was ‘accustomed to the wholly local provision for public libraries common in Britain and reinforced by the Public Libraries Act of 1850,[and] noted the level of government funding for public libraries in the major cities of Australia, and was astonished by the wholly government-run Sydney Free Public Library.’ Bryan suggested that the support for libraries was indicative of a period of colonial pride and development.
Traue also suggests that some of the libraries which developed in Australia during this time were generated by different factors than Britain. One such example was the National Colonisation Society’s plans for South Australia in 1831, where library provision was to ‘help educate the colonists for self-government.’ Within two months of the passing of the South Australia Act of 1834, a Literary Association had been formed in London. The members collected together nearly two hundred volumes to be sent out to form the first library. These books became part the Mechanics’ Institute in 1838. Behind the planning of libraries in the settlements of South Australia and New Zealand there was a desire to provide an infrastructure which would ensure that settler society advanced, rather than slipped back to less civilized ways in the frontier environment. One prescription was access to culture through books and libraries.
American library historians, Whitney North Seymour and Elizabeth N. Layne, go one step further to claim that the free library in the United States was a unique institution and link the development of libraries with the American commitment ‘to the same principle of free and open trade in ideas as the Constitution.’ They suggest that America was ahead of Britain in the formation of the public library model. This may have been aided by their liberal attitude to women in the workforce, as Black states that 70% of America’s libraries were established by women. Jean Hassenforder suggests that Edward Edwards, who pioneered the public library in the United Kingdom, based his argument for the provision of free libraries on statistics from France, Germany and the United States. By doing so, Hassenforder stated, Edwards demonstrated ‘his own countries backwardness in that domain.’
William F. Poole, Chicago Public Library Librarian, discussed the American public library and its organization under State laws and support from general taxation in 1876. He suggested that in America there was little opposition to the public library model. In Britain ‘where the questions of national schools, secular schools, and parochial schools are still mooted, the idea of levying a general tax for the support of a library free to all, and furnished with books adapted to the capabilities of all classes, [the idea of the public library] was not in harmony with the traditions and public policy of that people.’ Herbert Putnam, President of the American Library Association, stated in 1898, that the existence of the free library in America for over half a century indicated an assertion that ‘it is the proper function of the government to supply books to such of its citizens as may require them at the expense of the community as a whole.’
Applications to New Zealand Provincial Councils during the first few decades after colonization are an indication that settlers had similar expectations as Americans over service provision. They considered libraries to be part of the function of the governing bodies. The reality was that establishing libraries in the new colony was far more difficult than it had been in Britain, as there were few wealthy families from whom endowments might be obtained. Settlers had to look to their own resources. The level of self-help which they generated during the first years of settlement needed to be balanced by a permanent source of income, hence the adoption of the public library model by the end of century.