Bromley House Library (originally the Nottingham Subscription Library) is a

subscription library A subscription library (also membership library or independent library) is a library that is financed by private funds either from membership fees or endowments. Unlike a public library, access is often restricted to members, but access rights ca ...

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and nor ...

, England.

Premises

The library is situated in Bromley House, a Georgian townhouse in Nottingham city centre. This building is grade II* listed and retains many original features. It was built in 1752 as his

town house A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residen ...

Sir George Smith, 1st Baronet Sir George Smith, 1st Baronet (1714–1769), of Smith House (later " Bromley House"), Angel Row, Nottingham, and of Stoke Hall in the parish of East Stoke in Nottinghamshire, was a member of the Smith family of bankers, who established Smith' ...

(1714-1769) of Stoke Hall, East Stoke, Nottinghamshire, a grandson of the founder of

Smith's Bank Smith's Bank was a series of English banking partnerships in London and the provinces, all controlled by the Smith family that operated between 1658 and 1918. Although Smith's Bank was never a single entity, the first bank was established in N ...

in Nottingham, the oldest known provincial bank in the United Kingdom. He used part as an office for transacting his lucrative business as Collector of the Land Tax. In 1929

Evans, Clark and Woollatt Evans, Clark and Wollatt was an architectural practice based in Nottingham from the early 1920s to 1948. History The practice was established by Robert Evans (Jun), Robert Evans, John Thomas Clark and John Woollatt by 1921. Robert Evans died in 1 ...

added a new doorway and frontage, allowing the ground floor to be converted for retail use. In the first-floor 'Standfast Library' is a meridian line, dating from 1836 and used to set clocks to Noon 'local' time in the days before

railway time Railway time was the standardised time arrangement first applied by the Great Western Railway in England in November 1840, the first recorded occasion when different local mean times were synchronised and a single standard time applied. The key ...

Greenwich Mean Time Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the local mean time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being ...

was introduced as the British standard. The longcase clock in the room is still set to Nottingham time, 4 minutes and 33 seconds behind Greenwich. In the attics, Alfred Barber opened the first photographic studio in the Midlands on 2 October 1841. Started 1 April 2019 a major refurbishment project comprising new roof, sympathetically restored attic rooms and essential internal repairs partially funded by a grant from Historic England East Midlands. The refurbished roof was completed in October 2019.

History

The Nottingham Subscription Library was founded on 1 April 1816 at Carlton Street, in the

Hockley Hockley is a large village and civil parish in Essex in the East of England located between Chelmsford and Southend-on-Sea, or, more specifically, between Rayleigh and Rochford. It came to prominence during the coming of the railway in the 189 ...

area of the city."Members at the heart of a thriving library". ''Chad'', 16 April 2014, p.70. Accessed 9 June 2024 In April 1820, Bromley House was offered for sale by auction and purchased by the library for £2,750 (). The library moved in during 1821. In the 19th century the library had around one hundred subscribers, including George Green and

Edward Bromhead Sir Edward Thomas ffrench Bromhead, 2nd Baronet FRS FRSE (26 March 1789 – 14 March 1855) was a British landowner and mathematician, best remembered as patron of the mathematician and physicist George Green and mentor of George Boole. Life Bor ...

. Historically, the first name on the list of subscribers was the

Duke of Newcastle Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne was a title that was created three times, once in the Peerage of England and twice in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first grant of the title was made in 1665 to William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, Willi ...

Lord Lieutenant A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility ov ...

of the county.

Library services

had 1,638 members who paid an annual subscription. Items on loan are still recorded using a manual ledger system where each member has their own page. The library has a stock of just under 50,000 books (expanding by 700-800 each year) which includes a good selection of interest to local historians, and a wide selection of 19th and 20th century novels. It also holds

audiobook An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sch ...

s and CDs. The

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

contributed towards a project to create the library's computer catalogue 'Bromcat'. This involved a team of staff and volunteers

cataloguing In library and information science, cataloging ( US) or cataloguing ( UK) is the process of creating metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images, etc. Cataloging provides information such as aut ...

the entire contents over a two-year period, completing the work in 2013.

Librarians

* William Hardy 1816 – 1819 * Valentine Kirk 1819 – 1820 * James Archer 1820 – 1834 * John Walton 1834 – 1857 * Count Ubaldo Marioni 1857 – 1865 * John Cummings Banwell 1867 – 1893 * J William Moore 1893 – 1899 * Arthur Lineker 1899 – 1926

References

External links

Library website
{{Authority control Subscription libraries in England Libraries in Nottinghamshire Grade II* listed buildings in Nottinghamshire 1816 establishments in England Houses completed in 1752