LONDON LIBRARY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19834, 25 June 1934, Page 10

LONDON LIBRARY

The opening of a rew wing of the London Library recalls the founding of the library to 1840 through the efforts of Thomas Carlyle and others. The new wing was opened by Lord Crews, whose father. Richard Monckton Mitoes. the first Lord Houghton, joined with Carlyle in initial efforts to establish the library'. The project w r as first discussed by Carlyle with Milnes. Hallam. Grote and Gladstone at a meeting held in the drawing room of Lady Stanley of Alderley. A second discussion was held soon after and resulted to the forming of a committee consisting of Carlyle, Lcrd Eliot, Lord Lyttelton. Milnes, Lord Montengle and Lord Clarendon, its president. Among the early members of the library were Tennyson. Huxley, Darwin. Herbert Spencer, Macaulay. Gladstone, Napoleon 111.. Guizot and Jusserand. The library, which is mainly for the student and serious reader, at first consisted of two rooms to Pall Mall, with 3,000 books. Now it has more than 400,000 volumes, and adds new ones at the rate of about 8,000 a year. Some ancient and valuable volumes are contained in the library. Among them is a Theocritus dated 1495, with a portrait of Pircheimer believed to be the work of Durer.