Whitechapel Library

Whitechapel Library, Whitechapel High Street. 1891-2 by Potts, Son & Hennings is one of the many free public libraries and institutes to appear in London c.1890-1905 funded by J. Passmore Edwards, editor of the Building News. This was the first in East London and characterises the drift away from sermonising Gothic towards a warmer aesthetic combining Northern Renaissance details with Baroque asymmetry. Red-brick with mullioned and leaded windows dressed in terra-cotta tiles by Burmantoft's, popular for their perceived resistance to the polluted atmosphere of the East End. Showy sculpted frieze of interweaving foliage at first floor and sculpted spandrels of putti over the entrance signed by R. Spruce. The roofline was originally more distinctive with shaped gables and a central cupola. The builder was Walter Gladding of Baker’s Row; the architects Potts Son and Hennings. Arthur William Hennings, a pupil of Sir John Sulman, entered into a partnership with Edward Potts of Oldham, and his son, William Edward Potts, about 1891. However, this appears to have been a similar arrangement to that adopted by Edward Salomons, the partnership with Hennings relating solely to the London office while the northern offices continued to operate separately under the title Potts Son & Pickup. The Practice had attracted the Commissioners’ attention, perhaps, with their design for Wimbledon Library. The style is similarly non-partisan, a salmagundi of Renaissance and Tudorbethan snippets, with asymmetrical shaped gables, an oriel window, moulded terracotta friezes, ‘gambolling cherubs’ by R. Caldwell Spruce of Burmantofts in the spandrels of the entrance, and a square central tourelle.

The Whitechapel Art Gallery and Whitechapel Library had been founded at the behest of Canon Barnett and his wife Henrietta Barnett, who felt it was important that Jewish immigrants should also have access to cultural centres. The library was used by the Jewish community to escape the poverty and overcrowding of their tenements and became known as the “University of the Ghetto.” Among the famous persons who used the library on a regular basis were the poet and artist Isaac Rosenberg (his blue plaque is on the building), the writer Jacob Bronowski and the playwrights Arnold Wesker and Bernard Kops.

The foundation stone was laid by the Lord Mayor on 27 July 1891 to music provided by the band of the Tower Hamlets Volunteers.- 

The memorial stone of the Whitechapel Free Library, which is being erected exactly opposite the parish church, was laid on Monday last, by the Lord Mayor. The new building, which has been designed by Messrs. Potts, Son & Hennings, of London and Manchester, will have a frontage to the High Street of about 40 feet, and extend some 130 feet to the rear. Reading-rooms and lending department will be placed on the ground-floor, with reference library and museum on the floor above. Mr. Gladding is the builder and the cost, including furniture and books, will be about £12,000. [British Architect 31 July 1891 page 92-93]

The newsrooms were opened to the public on 9 May 1892, with a formal opening of the building by Lord Rosebery, Chairman of the LCC and Foreign Secretary, on 25 October 1892. From the beginning Hebrew books and papers were provided for the large Jewish population.

The building occupied a relatively narrow site, only 48 feet wide and 130 feet deep. A central door led to a small lobby leading to a passage flanked to the left by the closed-access lending library, with narrow borrowers’ area by the door, and to the right small separate boys’ and girls’ reading rooms. Beyond the children’s rooms the passage opened out into a staircase hall. The full width of the ground floor beyond was taken up with the main newsroom and reading room, top lit, though only partially, as on the first floor above, with arch- braced queen-post roof, was a room devoted to the natural history collections of the Rev. Dan Greatorex, vicar of St Paul, Dock Street. 6 Across the front of the first floor was the reference library, and above it librarian’s offices and a caretaker’s flat. To counteract the dimness of the reading room, electric lights were installed, unusually early and before the board had built its generating plant in Osborn Street, which meant the library had its own generator.

Reference      British Architect 31 July 1891 page 92-93