"In the Separate Reading Room for Ladies Are Provided Those Publications Specially Interesting to Them": Ladies' Reading Rooms and British Public Libraries 1850-1914

Investigating the availability of periodicals and newspapers and the nature and size of their readership in the British Isles during the Victorian and Edwardian periods are difficult processes. As Ballaster et al. comment: "Actual numbers of readers of magazines are notoriously hard to establish. This is because they command so many 'hidden' readers – those who do not subscribe to, or buy, the magazine, but have access to it by some other means" (45). Yet, there is one institution, whose involvement in and contribution towards the use of such publications has been largely ignored, despite its raison d'être being to provide "access ... by some other means". This institution is the public library. Ballaster et al. very briefly mention "lending libraries [established] in the mid eighteenth century", but these were subscription libraries, where readers, overwhelmingly from the upper reaches of society, paid to borrow magazines. By contrast, the public library made periodicals and newspapers freely available to all "who do not subscribe to, or buy the magazine". This article will examine how some Victorian and Edwardian public libraries targeted one specific user group, female readers, making serials available to them via dedicated reading rooms.

The role of public libraries in this process is not insignificant for a variety of reasons. Firstly, they were relatively well distributed across the British Isles. Between 1850, when the first public library legislation was passed covering England and Wales, and the outbreak of World War I, approximately 560 local authorities across Great Britain, i.e., not including Ireland, had established public libraries (Kelly 468–81); an estimated 79% of the urban population had access to public library facilities just prior to 1914 (Adams 8). Secondly, with very few exceptions (Kelly 46), newspapers and periodicals were always considered a vital element in a public library's stock and were accordingly made widely available. Thirdly, most public libraries facilitated access by providing separate newspaper (and periodical) reading rooms, not just in the central library, but also in some branch libraries as well. Fourthly, overall provision was considerable in terms of the number and range of newspapers and periodicals (Kelly 81), with many authorities spending more per year on serials than on new books. A major library such as Birmingham had two departments that stocked a multitude of newspapers and periodicals. In 1901 their Reference Department took 86 weeklies, seven fortnightlies, 152 monthlies and 76 quarterlies, as well as a host of annuals and directories. In addition, their Central Newsroom housed 51 daily and 95 weekly newspapers, together with 85 weeklies, 94 monthlies and a range of railway timetables. In 1897 the medium-sized Whitechapel Public Library in London stocked 27 daily newspapers (including the New York Herald), 77 weekly newspapers and periodicals, and 29 monthlies in its Newsroom, plus 20 assorted journals in its Reference Library, 24 titles in its Ladies' Room and 10 in the Boys' Room. Even a small library, such as Newton-in-Makerfield in Lancashire, carried 74 newspapers and periodicals in 1912 in its General Reading Room. Finally, these reading rooms were very popular and heavily used (Kelly 81), attracting as James Duff Brown, a prominent contemporary public librarian, claimed: "a class of reader who would not otherwise come to the library at all" (428). Reading rooms were warm, dry and free at point of use, and, whereas an individual had to be a registered member of the library to borrow books, everyone had unrestricted access to the reading rooms, leading to substantial usage. In Cardiff a head count on February 27^th 1892 showed 1,771 people in its Newsroom; whilst in Belfast's in 1901 the average daily attendance was 4,580.

The aggregated usage of serials in public libraries should not be underestimated. Whereas a bought copy of a periodical might be read by the purchaser, their family and maybe lent on to friends, the same title purchased by a public library was probably read by many times that number. Public library reading rooms stocked a wide range of newspapers and...