Chetham's Library

Chetham's Library occupies a sandstone medieval collegiate building on Long Millgate in Manchester, England, next to the cathedral. The building was constructed in the 1420s as the residence of the priests of the collegiate church founded by Thomas de la Warre, and after the Reformation it passed through several uses before the textile merchant and financier Humphrey Chetham left money in his will of 1653 to establish a school and a free public library. The library opened soon afterward and has operated continuously since, making it the oldest free public reference library in the English-speaking world. The collection runs to around 100,000 volumes, with a large proportion printed before 1850, and covers local history, theology, science, travel and literature, as well as manuscripts and a collection of early broadsides and ephemera. The reading room retains its seventeenth-century oak bookcases, reading alcoves and a plain wooden table. A small alcove is traditionally said to be where Marx and Engels studied together in the summer of 1845, although the claim rests on borrowing and visiting records rather than extensive documentation. The building also houses Chetham's School of Music, one of the country's leading specialist music schools, and the library is the only part regularly open to the public. Visits are by guided tour, which takes visitors through the medieval Baronial Hall, the Cloister, the reading room and the Audit Room, with commentary on the building's architecture and the books on display. The structure has survived with little major alteration, helped by careful conservation, and escaped the worst of the 1940 bombing that devastated much of the nearby area. Because it is a working library and school, access is limited to specific tour times, and advance booking is recommended.