Putney Library opened to the public in 1899.<\/p>\n
The building was the gift of the publisher Sir George
\nNewnes.<\/p>\n
A bust of him was placed in the long corridor to the building
\nduring the 1920s.<\/p>\n
When the library first opened it listed its members by their
\noccupations:<\/p>\n
Maids, Grooms, Footmen, Butlers, Draper, Ladies and
\nGentlemen.<\/p>\n
A practice which has long gone out of use.<\/p>\n
These membership records were written upon ledgers,
\nwhich were kept within the Librarians Office,
\nand stored there for many years after they had became
\nobsolete.<\/p>\n
You could made an interesting historical class analysis by
\njust going through these ledgers.<\/p>\n
During World War Two the basement of the building was
\nused as an ARP ( Air Raid Patrol ) centre.
\nThis space was later used to store items for the
\nWandsworth museum.<\/p>\n
I worked in Putney Library from 1973 to 1987.<\/p>\n
When I first worked in the library it still had its original
\nwood book cases, and a wonderful grandfather clock in
\nthe hall.<\/p>\n
Roy Plomley of ‘Desert Island Discs’ fame would use the
\nMusic Library in his research work for his broadcasts.
\nHe also liked to see old French films, and I would sometimes
\nbump into him at the National Film Theatre.<\/p>\n
Another Putney library user was the Tribune cartoonist
\nGeorge Gale.<\/p>\n
A former Labour minister, Lord Jenkins of Putney, was yet
\nanother library user.<\/p>\n
I give the above facts as an example of the joy of Library
\nhistory.<\/p>\n
We all use & work within public libraries, and very rarely
\nthink about just how they have been used over the years.<\/p>\n
Yet just you look at this kind of history, & you will find a
\nfascinating part of all our social heritage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Putney Library opened to the public in 1899. The building was the gift of the publisher Sir George Newnes. A bust of him was placed in the long corridor to the building during the 1920s. When the library first opened it listed its members by their occupations: Maids, Grooms, Footmen, Butlers, Draper, Ladies and Gentlemen. … Continue reading Maids, Grooms, Footmen, and Library History.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}