User:Ahmago/sandbox6

MANCHESTER FREE LIBRARY BUILDING, HOME TO THE SPANISH INSTITUTO CERVANTES

The Manchester Free Library was opened in 1852. The Spanish Government's Instituto Cervantes opened in Manchester in 1997. To clarify the history of how one became the other is the aim of this article.

History: confused
Brief information about the past history of the building housing the Instituto Cervantes, situated on the corner of Deansgate and Liverpool Road, is contained in just a few architectural or tourist guides and online photo sites. The most notable are Clare Hartwell, Hyde and Pevsner, Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (2004); and Barry Worthington, Discovering Manchester: A Walking Guide to Manchester and Salford (2002), which clearly states that this "fine structure" was the “Free Library Building”, and after restoration is now occupied by the Instituto Cervantes."

But there is no mention of this on the Spanish Institute's official website. Nor is it mentioned on any part of the Manchester City Council's library website, especially where one would expect to find it, on the two pages about the history of what came "Before Central Library: Campfield" and "Before Central Library: King Street and Piccadilly". <ref https://secure.manchester.gov.uk/info/500325/central_library_building/4586/history_of_central_library

Nor is the subsequent history treated in the existing Wikipedia article on the "Manchester Free Library”. The nearest to an official recognition of the historic link between past and present is the website of Historic England, even though it emerges confusingly from two different entries. The first has the title "Castlefield Information Centre", to which is added (in small print under Details) “(formerly Deansgate Free Library)". At the bottom is a recent voluntary contribution providing photographic proof that the Instituto Cervantes now occupies the same Deansgate address as the listed building. The second entry is headed "Castlefield / Deansgate Library (images)", and provides a photo, taken in 2001, "for the Images of England project". Despite the confusion, both entries include the best and most complete architectural description of a structure that had become, in 1974, a Grade 2 listed building: Formerly known as: Nos.322 TO 330 Deansgate Free Library DEANSGATE. Includes: No.2 LIVERPOOL ROAD. Library over shops, now visitor' centre and urban studies centre.1882, by George Meek; altered. Red brick with sandstone dressings, slate roof. Rectangular plan with curved corners to the front. Romanesque style. Two storeys (the upper much higher), 7 bays including the corners; square stone piers to ground floor, plus cast-iron columns at the corners, frieze and cornice over ground floor, sill-band and panelled pilasters to 1st floor, plain brick frieze, moulded cornice with blocking course interrupted in the 3 centre bays by a stone frieze, bracketed cornice and enriched parapet with central carved pediment. The 4th bay at ground floor is an open entrance to a lateral through-passage, furnished with iron gates and with a segmental pediment above containing carved figures; immediately to the right is a round-headed doorway moulded in 2 orders, with shafts, and the other bays have glazed screens. At 1st floor each bay has large stepped triple window treated as an arcade of round-headed arches, with stone shafts which have carved capitals, geometrical glazing bars, and hoodmoulds, that (sic) over the main entrance with a panelled arch-band above. Quadrantal corners with 5-bay arcades carried round, and 2-bay returned ends in matching style. Rear linked to former Higher Campfield Market Hall, Liverpool Road (q.v.). At least one inaccuracy concerns the number of window bays, which should be nine (or is it eleven?) including the large corner ones. What is not clear is who the anonymous author of the survey is, and when it was composed. Was it in 1974 when originally listed, and then updated after it became a visitor centre? Or was it written once it became the Castlefield Visitor or Information Centre?

To confound matters further, the building is in the Council's A-Z of Listed Buildings in Manchester, but it has reverted to, or retained, its anonymity in the register, under Deansgate (west side), as "Nos.322 to 330 (even), including no.2 Liverpool Road. Grade II. 17.5.74". Somewhere in the Council there must be a record not only of the present but also of the past history of the building, as is shown in a 2010 Council document about the Water Street regeneration scheme, within the Castlefield Conservation Area, which has a photo mapping the listed buildings in the area, including item 12: "no 322-330 Deansgate Free Library (Grade 2)". At the beginning of the document is a splendid aerial photograph of the area that highlights the building's prominent position at the forefront of a block of listed buildings, and directly opposite to the new skyscraper called the Beetham Tower, containing the Hilton Hotel.

Clarification about the building's role as Castlefield Visitor Centre is to be found in a chapter posted online of a book by three Manchester academics, Terry Wyke, Robson and Dodge, Manchester: Mapping the City (2018). It reproduces a North West tourist board's picture postcard, showing a colourful diagram of "Castlefield: Britain's First Urban Heritage Park". On it one of the several square balloons has the instantly recognisable photogenic corner of the building with the words: "Castlefield Visitors' Centre. The Centre provides an introduction to the whole of Castlefield […].” Another balloon entitled "Urban Studies Centre" also points to the same building, with a close-up photo of the rounded arch above the doorway and the sign "Manchester's Urban Studies Centre". The caption under the photo says it "is situated above the Visitors' Centre” and "is operated by the Manchester Education Committee." The short text of the chapter has the title "1986. Castlefield: urban heritage" and tries to justify the opening claim that Castlefield is "Manchester's most historic site", though this was not recognised in the 1950s and 1960s when St Matthew's Church had been demolished and the area was "largely derelict" (227). In the 1970s, archeological digs (uncovering the original remains of the Roman castle) and the rescue from demolition of Liverpool Road Station (the first passenger railway station in the world) led to the area being declared a conservation area in 1979, and then in 1982 being designated an urban heritage park. The text makes no specific mention of the Visitors' or Urban Studies Centres, nor is there anything to explain why the building they came to occupy had been registered in 1974 as a listed Grade II building. The only clue as to the importance of its advantageous location is revealed in a town-planning map unearthed by the authors at the end of the chapter, the provenance of which is Manchester City Council, "Castlefield" (c.1980). It shows the boundary of the conservation area, the site of the Roman fort, and three "proposed" conversions: the "NW. Museum of Science and Industry", the "Air and Space Museum", and the "Proposed Heritage Centre", which is the building that concerns us in a prominent position at the corner of Liverpool Road and the unmarked Deansgate.

Another book by academic experts, Alistair Black, Pepper and Bagshaw, Books, Buildings and Social Engineering: Early Public Libraries in Britain from Past to Present (2009), which ought to give some coverage to this Deansgate building, in fact relegates it to one inaccurate reference in the appendix, a gazetteer of libraries: "Deansgate (now offices) 'Central Lib'., Archs. George Meek and John Allison 1882 ext. 1922” (404). Inaccurate because its current use in 2009 was of course the Cervantes Institute; it was never called 'Central Library'; it was not extended in 1922, rather its internal storage space was altered; and its Grade 2 listing is omitted. The long section on the process towards the opening of the new Manchester Central Library in 1934 begins by making the point that until then Manchester had not had a permanent purpose-built home for its central reference collection, for "its early years had been spent in a remodelled Owenite Hall of Science at Campfield, which opened in 1852", and in doing so Manchester was "among the very first cities to open a public library under the Libraries Act of 1850." Then in 1877 "the central reference collection had been moved to the converted Old Manchester Town Hall (on King Street), but this building had been sold in 1908" and the books "moved in 1912 to temporary huts in the grounds of the Old Infirmary in Piccadilly, where it remained throughout the war" (166-67). No mention is made of the Deansgate building or the role it played in all this.

Some important information was provided in a short illustrated booklet by one of the authors of Mapping the City, Terry Wyke, together with Derek Brumhead, in their A Walk Round Castlefield (1989). The Castlefield Information Centre (as it must have been called then) is described as follows: "The handsome building fronting Deansgate was designed by George Meek principally as a library and finally opened in 1882" (26). This was because the original Campfield library (in the Owenite Hall) on Tonman Street had become "structurally dangerous", so its contents were transferred to the old Town Hall in King Street; and it "was decided that a new building on the Deansgate-Liverpool Road corner should be a joint scheme of the Markets Committee and Libraries Committee, serving as a branch library and as an improved entrance to the Higher Campfield Market" (which was being erected on the site of the open-air Campfield fair). Also noteworthy is the information that in "1981 the building facade was cleaned and a restoration programme started", revealing above the main entrance, beneath the "years of soot and grime", the carved City Arms and "figures in high relief representing Commerce, Peace, Industry and Trade." Mention is made of the Urban Studies Centre on the upper floor. But curiously there is no mention of the Grade 2 listing. Although no source is given, the photograph ("c. 1895") of the handsome building with horse-drawn carts and a tram passing by, is most likely from the principal source being used, though not stated, which must be Credland.

Credland's history: Campfield opening
Indeed, the fullest and clearest account of the building's early history is in W R Credland, The Manchester Public Free Libraries: a History and Description, and a Guide to their Contents and Use (1899). Between pages 128 and 129 is the said photograph, in much clearer definition, captioned "Deansgate Branch"; and there is another one of the inside, the large "Reading Room", with distinctive iron columns supporting the skylighted high ceiling. William Robert Credland was Deputy Chief Librarian of the Manchester Libraries. His account of the opening of the first library in 1852 in the Owenite Hall of Science, "which fronted Byrom Street" (35), draws extensively from that of the first Chief Librarian, Edward Edwards, in his book on Free Town Libraries, their Formation, Management and History: in Britain, France, Germany and America(1869). Edwards had been actively involved in the committee stages of William Ewart's Public Libraries Act 1850, and in its immediate implementation by Manchester. Credland follows Edwards in underlining the fact that Prince Albert sent a donation of books and, in a letter dated 25 August 1852, praised Manchester "for taking the lead" in applying the rate-supported legislature, and hoping that "the example thus nobly set by Manchester" would be "followed throughout the country." (5). Prince Albert could not attend the opening ceremony on 2 September, but other dignitaries did, thus marking the national importance of the event. A stage-struck William Makepeace Thackeray briefly seconded the resolution moved by Charles Dickens, in which the institution was said to be making "special provision for the working classes, by means of a free lending library". In his speech Dickens joked that his uncertainty about the meaning of the term "Manchester School" (of economic liberalism) was resolved by seeing before him the 20,000 volumes of the Manchester free school of books, which would teach the working man that "capital and labour are not opposed, but are mutually dependent and mutually supporting" (11-12). The speech of the third literary dignitary, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, pointed towards the educational benefits by making use of what now seems a very apposite, even prescient, metaphor, calling the library of books a "mighty arsenal", for "books are weapons" which students should use in accordance with "the principles of chivalry", in order "like the knight of old to defend the weak, to resist the oppressor […]” (14).

The second half of the inauguration was held in the evening so that working men could attend and present their own report. There the MP John Bright (political partner of Richard Cobden in the Manchester free-trade school of thought) echoed the Dickensian interpretation of the term “free library” by emphasing that its educational purpose showed "the great harmony among the various classes of this community", who have all "clubbed together their givings [voluntary subscriptions] into one common fund to raise this institution" (22-24). It was also in the evening that Thackeray overcame his stage-fright and delivered a weighty speech to make up for his earlier unfinished one, concluding with the message that as a "liberal writer" he was making "common" "cause" with the predominantly working-class audience (25, 27). Credland finishes his account of the opening by quoting part of a monumental 48 pages epic poem on “The Inauguration of the Manchester Free Library" by George Hatton, dedicated to Sir John Potter "the originator and munificent supporter" of the library. The poem's patronising "rapture" extols the library as a free school where the "unlettered handicraftsman in new phase" can emerge from "the depths of ignorance" with his "longing soul" crying out "'Advance---advance.'" (28). The poet's claim that it was the "first really popular Free Library in England" (28) seems vindicated by Credland's account of its "striking success", enumerating the number of volumes consulted (61,000) in the reference room during the first year and the number (77,000) issued by the lending department. Nevertheless, Credland admitted that there was a great need for the number of users to be increased, because, as he notes from the 1851 population census, half (31,000) of the total number of children between 3 and 14 "were neither at school nor in employment", and were therefore not "receiving the instruction necessary to fit it for the battle of life." Credland adds that the "use of the Free Libraries has in later years increased out of all comparison with the mere growth of the population”, largely accounted for by the "passing of the Elementary Education Act of 1870." (30).

He then moves on to describe the Campfield building that housed the first free library, noting that after a few years "its inadequacy to meet the public's requirements became apparent”, initially due to its very popularity and the growth of both population and book publishing. The building was originally built in 1840 and was called "The Hall of Science" "as a place of meeting for the followers of Robert Owen, whose name will live in history as that of the originator of a form of socialism” (35). Ten years later, Credland notes that the "Owenites having become greatly reduced in number were glad enough to dispose of their property, and it was purchased by Alderman John Potter on behalf of the subscribers to the Public Library Fund, for the sum of £1,200.” Credland remarks how appropriate it was that "a structure which had at first been used for the purpose of propagating a form of communism for which the people were by no means ripe, came to be devoted to a more practical and promising method of social reform." (36-37). Credland was obviously voicing his approval for the assertively liberal ideology behind the Victorian free library movement, faced with the threat of industrial unrest at home and social revolution abroad.

Such was the success of the free library that, as Credland narrates, it was necessary to open two branch lending libraries in 1857 in Hulme and Ancoats, and between 1860 and 1872 three more branches at Rochdale Road, Chorlton-Ardwick and Cheetham. The last one was so popular it was transferred to a "magnificent" (114) new building opened with great ceremony in 1878. Meanwhile, the Campfield library building had become even more unsatisfactory. It was "too far from the centre of town", the ceiling was too low, the ventilation poor and there was not enough shelving. Matters came to a head in 1877 when the structure "began to give way beneath the weight of books placed against its walls", becoming so dangerous it was "abruptly closed." (116). The books were transferred into the offices of the recently vacated old Town Hall in King Street. This was then refurbished as a temporary, or possibly more permanent, central reference library, and was officially opened (on the same day as the Cheetham branch) in 1878. Credland echoes the hopes that the move might be permanent, for he expresses his approval of its central situation and the accessibility of "a building placed in the very heart of the city and occupying one of its most desirable sites" (126). He reports that the reading room seated about one hundred persons, and frequently it was "crowded to excess". In May 1882, however, "the accommodation for readers was enlarged to about the extent of one third, by the addition of a portion of the room used for the storage of books." (126)

Credland: Deansgate opening
Credland doesn't spell out what happened to those books, but their destination is clear from the next section of the history, entitled the “ Deansgate Branch" (127), opened in 1882. The very first sentence draws attention to the fact that when the Campfield library closed in 1877, "the books of the lending department were also removed with those of the Reference Library, and stored in the old Town Hall", where "they remained for four years." (127). They must then have gone to the new building to create extra space for readers. The presence of those books underpinned the main point made by the Mayor, Thomas Baker, at the start of his opening-ceremony speech: "The branch free library we have now met to inaugurate is the successor of one which has an historical celebrity. The lending library at Campfield was the first lending-out library in Manchester." (129) As the immediate successor to the first library, and the adjunct to its other successor the new reference library, the importance of the Deansgate branch library, half a mile away in the centre of the city, was reflected in its cost, its size and the quality of its architecture. Accompanied by the two full-page photos of the exterior and the interior already noted, Credland's description deserves to be quoted at length: When in 1877 the original home of the Public Libraries in Campfield, was so unceremoniously closed, the books of the lending department were also removed with those of the Reference Library, and stored in the old Town Hall. There they remained for four years. In the meantime the old building and site were sold to the Markets Committee of the Town Council, and an arrangement was made in conjunction with that Committee, to erect on a site fronting Deansgate, a suitable building which should serve for the library, and also as an improvement of the Market entrance. Designs prepared by Mr Geo. Meek, under the direction of Mr John Allison, the City Surveyor, were adopted. The elevations are classic in style, carried out in stock bricks, with stone cornices, columns, panels and other dressings. The ground floor consists of shops, and in the centre of the Deansgate façade is a wide entrance to the New Market, above which is a curved pediment filled in with figures in high relief representing Commerce, supported by Peace and Industry, flanked by figures representing Trade. To the right of this is the entrance to the library, consisting of a handsome doorway having [a] semi-circular head carried on stone columns with carved caps. This gives admission to an entrance hall, tastefully inlaid with coloured tiles, from which a broad staircase leads to the apartments forming the library and reading rooms. [… ] The chief room is very lofty, and measures 72 feet in length by 54 feet wide. It is lighted principally from the roof, which is supported by light iron columns, but there are also windows on the side facing Deansgate. These windows have been made double in order to prevent annoyance from the street traffic. This fine apartment, which presents on entrance a most striking appearance, affords ample accommodation for the newsroom and library. The library is in the newsroom [...]. Opposite to the newsroom is the boys' reading room, similar in style, but considerably smaller, being 50 feet by 36 feet. It will accommodate 100 boys, and is provided with a collection of books for their use. The total cost of the library, including fittings, was £12,000. The library was opened by a public meeting being held within its walls on April 5th, 1882 [...]” (127-29).

In his speech, the Mayor Thomas Baker, who presided, as well as seeing the new library as a continuation of the original, also emphasised that it was a huge improvement as regards both situation and structure. The Free Libraries Committee "believe that in this structure they have avoided all the evils of the old one. As far as they can judge, they have ample room, most excellent ventilation, and a situation second to none in this great city. The books now upon the shelves are substantially those of the old Campfield Lending Library, except that the old worn-out ones have been removed [...]. Manchester was the first town in England to make the experiment of a Free Lending Library under the Libraries Act, and it has carried out that experiment to a most successful issue. This good work has been communicated over the length and breadth of the land." And because free access to education through books and newspapers was ennobling and lessened idleness and crime, the Mayor was disposed to think that "the Free Libraries, comprising the Reference Library with its 70,000 volumes, and the six branch libraries, are the most noble public institutions which Manchester possesses [...]” (130). The Mayor also emphasised that the library committee, in the first instance, "did not contemplate a building either so large as that in which we are now assembled or in so public a situation, but the Markets Committee of the Corporation, having possessed themselves of this plot of land, because it was contiguous to their market and fronting to one of the main streets in the city, and, as they needed only the ground floor, negotiations (sic) were opened with them which terminated in the Free Libraries Committee becoming the owners of the whole of the second floor of this building and all above it." (129-30). Here lies the key to understanding the connection between the two library buildings, a key already outlined by Credland and also reiterated by another of the inaugural speakers, Counsellor James Croston, who praised the Corporation because it had "acted wisely in not carrying out the first intention of rebuilding on the site of the old structure, but had availed themselves of the opportunity afforded by the Markets Committee to give them that commodious and handsome room” (134).

Because the original library had been divided and given birth to a double institution, one the reference the other the lending library, the Deansgate building was therefore the latest one of six branch libraries. Yet, nevertheless, its central position and direct ascendancy from the original gave it, along with the Reference Library, a special, even flagship status, which may have been assumed but was not fully explained in these observations, and as a result has been ignored in subsequent accounts of the Deansgate building. Through the joined forces of the two committees, the rebuilt library was a brand-new improved version of the original model. It was the latest, up-to-date, innovative, market version, or to put it even more emphatically, the new up-market model library was both literally and figuratively on top of the market.

Deansgate building: architectural features
Moreover, the new version of the original had its own distinctive logo and trademark in the form of the ornate high-relief sculptures. Credland has already pointed out, above the "wide entrance to the New Market", the sculpture "representing Commerce, supported by Peace and Industry, flanked by figures representing Trade" (128). Yet, it is by no means obvious that the allegorical figures of three ladies, flanked by children, convey, even by convention, the meaning attached to them by Credland. We can only speculate that the architect, or someone else, could have explained the allegory which had been designed either by him or by those committee members who had commissioned the sculpture. In any case, the "sculptor has not been identified". Credland also omits to mention what his photo clearly shows and that is the other imposing sculpture, high above the market entrance, at the top of the library, which depicts the Corporation's coat of arms with the motto "Concilio et Labore". Whether that first term should have been spelt 'consilio' alluding to the wise counsel in Ecclesiastes, or was assumed to mean council, is a matter for scholarly debate. At a meeting of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1857, a certain Mr Caw suggested the correct spelling should be "Consilio". Was the ambiguity a mistake, or was it intended to mean something like good counsel by a wise council? There seems to be no doubt, however, about the intended effect of both sculptures on the facade. Together they put on visible public display a combination of, and an alliance between, the library and the market; and more abstractly, between rational thought on the one hand and trade and industry on the other, symbolising the value of hard-work directed by intelligence.

Also not mentioned in Credland's or any other description, but very possibly visible over the library doorway, would have been the words "Free Library" (where today it says "Instituto Cervantes"), with no mention of "branch". The only evidence for this is not a photo, but a fine hand-drawing just of the entrances to the building by the illustrator in a book by William Arthur Shaw, Manchester Old and New [1894]. As well as the "Free Library" sign, the drawing also shows over the market entrance, in very large letters, the sign "Market", which in Credland's photo is replaced or obscured by the word "Sale", in the middle of something illegible. Whatever is over the library doorway in the photo is also out of focus and indiscernible. The book, incidentally, has a fine drawing of St Matthew's church behind the Campfield Market (137). Significantly, Shaw, a close friend it seems of Charles Sutton whom he calls a "gem of a librarian"(137), in his account of the free library organisation gives pride of place, that is last, to the central institution, the Reference Library, and next to it, after it, last but not least of all, is the Deansgate Branch Library (134). That subtle ordering reinforces the aura surrounding the presumed designation above the doorway, carved in stone, of "Free Library". Without, it should be emphasised, any reference to "branch", the two words would suggest, by their lack of an article and the grammatical abstraction, a representativeness beyond the limitations of a mere branch library, giving extra prominence to the adjective and concept of "Free".

This phrasing would have reflected quite clearly the context of the period, implying that the free libraries and the free library movement were closely associated with the powerful impetus towards free trade. It should be remembered that, just round the corner from the Deansgate building, the famous Free Trade Hall had been rebuilt, for the second time, on the same site, in 1856. Interestingly, Credland refers to the "classic" style of the Deansgate library, whereas the Historic England listing describes it as being in the "Romanesque style". Its rounded arcaded windows and triangular pediment indicate the presence of both. What no one seems to have noticed is the possibility of an allusion, not only to the classical tip of the Portico library, but also to the architecture of the Italian, palazzo-style, Free Trade Hall, specifically in the latter's facade forming a colonnaded arcade of nine rounded bay windows. The Deansgate library has at least nine bays, not the seven in the Historic England description. Depending on what counts as a bay, the Deansgate building might be said to have nine, like the Free Trade Hall, plus the two very large rounded ones at the corners. Both buildings have allegorical female figures representing trade, commerce and possibly the arts, though the Hall has many more. The main difference between the two structures, apart from size, is that, instead of the Hall’s sharply rectangular corners, the library is distinguished by its equally solid but softly rounded corners, which, by their prominent street-corner location, would appear to connect smoothly the trade from the nearby Liverpool Road Station (and the markets behind) with the commercial centre of the newly widened Deansgate. One might add that the library was fortunate not to suffer the Hall’s indignities of bombing by the Luftwaffe and being turned into a modern hotel. The symbolism of the library's appearance is of course necessarily subjective and speculative, because neither the architect Meek or the surveyor in charge Allison, or anyone else, seem to have left any clear indication of the meanings embodied in the building's design.

Local context
There is another aspect of the immediate local context that may help to bring out further meaning. The advantages of the frontage on Deansgate were obviously of prime importance. But the move away from the disadvantages of the original site or plot was not only desirable, it had a socio-historical, even political, significance that was implicit though not directly expressed. Credland says that the Owenite Hall of Science "fronted Byrom Street" (35). A report on the foundation-stone ceremony performed by Robert Owen in 1839 was more specific: "The site of the building is a plot of land situate on the north side of the large square, known as Camp Field, bounded by Tonman-street and Byrom-street […]. On the eastern side of the square stands St. Matthew's Church, a beautiful piece of gothic architecture, having one of the most beautiful spires in the area; whilst on the southerly side, leading to the station of the Liverpool railway, stands the sunday school of St. Matthew's". St Matthew's Church with its enormous spire was built in 1825, designed by Sir Charles Barry, "the most eminent British architect of the time". It occupied the ground between what would become the Lower and Upper Campfield Markets. Sadly, depopulation led to its demolition in 1951. The important point here is that it was directly adjoining, and on the opposite corner of the street to, the newly erected Hall of Science. This exact position is confirmed by Ordnance Survey maps of 1844 and 1850. A quick online search reveals that Friedrich Engels visited the Hall frequently; and he remarked on the large attendance of 3,000 articulate working-class people on a Sunday. Less easily accessible is the fact that the threat posed by socialist atheism, just next door, provoked the vicar of St Matthews to condemn the movement in a famous, or for some infamous, sermon, and to report the illegality of such political activity on a Sunday, taking to court members of the Hall. These included Robert Buchanan (Owenite), who wrote a pamphlet whose full title demonstrates and documents the acuteness of the conflict: Socialism Vindicated: in reply to a sermon entitled "Socialism denounced as an outrage upon the laws of God and man," preached by the Rev. W. J. Kidd, in St. Matthew's Church, Camp Field, Manchester, on Sunday morning, July 12th, 1840. This was the background of social conflict that prompted the approval of those who would, a decade later, welcome the taking over of the secular socialist Hall of Science by the rate-payer financed free library.

The replacement building in Deansgate three decades later signified a move that was less of a look backwards, more a clear look forwards, indicating the right way to progress, not only through the alliance of an intelligent council and cooperative labour force, but also through the integration of the Church in the advance of a more progressive society. The configuration of buildings on the renovated site could have been likened to a huge ship of state, with the powerhouse of the two covered markets fore and aft of the highest structure, St Matthew's Church and spire, and in the forefront, or prow, the library as the brain and head steering the way onwards and upwards, though in a more practical and earth-bound direction. One oddity of the library's mixture of architectural styles is the single, tall, strikingly large, moulded chimney-stack, the description of which, rather than mock-Tudor or neo-Gothic, might well be conveyed as a smaller harmonious replication, better still, reapplication, of the enormous spire, a kind of funnel emitting not religious fervour but the energy of intellectual activity generated by the book-reading below. In short, the move of the free library building, albeit on the same Campfield site, from a back-street plot to the very prominent plot on the corner of Deansgate, enabled the designers to make a bold statement on the public policy of uniting capitalist free-market trade with a more self-educated and socially directed workforce.