Table of contents
PROLOGUE: THE WEN
It is not difficult to fill a chapter, and it would perhaps not be impossible to fill a book, with quotations over three centuries deploring the state of library provision in…
METROPOLIS 1900–1965
W.R. MAIDMENTIn 1888 the London County Council was established as the primary local authority for the area now known as Inner London. Twelve years later the parishes within the county were…
METROPOLIS 1900–1965: BRICKS AND MORTAR
MICHAEL DEWEIn 1886, Thomas Greenwood had been rightly critical of the lack of public libraries in London. Eight years later, he was able to describe a changed situation. Following further…
METROPOLIS: PEOPLE AND PENCE
GRAHAM JONES“There is no hope for a more efficient library system for London”, wrote Frank Pacy, City Librarian of Westminster in the mid‐1920s, “under the present divided management by…
SUBURBIA 1900–1965
K.C. HARRISONLEBENSRAUM The London of Roman times, Elizabethan London, Pepys' London, the London of 1900, the capital of today — one after another successive maps in most atlases record the…