Birmingham's Shakespeare Memorial Library
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EVERyTHInG TOEVEryBODy Birmingham’s Shakespeare Memorial Library Plan of the 1865 Library showing the location of the first Shakespeare Memorial Room which was destroyed in the 1879 fire Contents Foreword by Adrian Lester ............................... 5 After the Fire – The Shakespeare Memorial Room ....... 14-15 Introduction by Tom Epps ................................ 6 The 20th Century ..................................................................... 16 The ‘Our Shakespeare Club’ .............................. 8 The 21st Century ...................................................................... 17 Birmingham in the Early 19th Century .......... 9 The Shakespeare Memorial Library Collection ............. 18-29 George Dawson and the Civic Gospel ....... 10-11 Postscript by Professor Ewan Fernie ............................... 30-31 The Birmingham Free Library ........................ 12 Timeline .................................................................................... 33 The 1879 Fire .................................................... 13 Further Reading & Acknowledgements ............................... 34 EvERything tO EveryBODy Architectural woodwork in the Shakespeare Memorial Room 4 Birmingham’s Shakespeare Memorial Library Foreword Adrian Lester Patron of the Heritage Lottery-Funded ‘Everything to Everybody’ Project ‘The time has come to give everything to everybody’ George Dawson, founder of the Birmingham Shakespeare Memorial Library I was born and bred in so often underestimated as a Birmingham. I started acting with cultural and historic centre – is the Birmingham Youth Theatre, the home of an internationally right next door to the Library of significant Shakespeare collection. Birmingham. I sang, as a boy Not only that, but a collection that chorister, in St Chad’s Cathedral was always intended for people choir, just around the corner from like my younger self, who might the new Library. otherwise find themselves excluded and disenfranchised in I left school without any real relation to this core part of understanding of Shakespeare’s English culture. work - a serious setback for me as I wanted to train as an actor and I was delighted to learn that Shakespeare’s plays seemed a vast, Birmingham is home to what is intimidating obstacle. I just didn’t the first great Shakespeare Library understand the writing when I in the world and still remains a tried to read the plays. I felt this uniquely democratic Shakespeare element of our classical culture collection, one intended for the wasn’t for me, or perhaps, for the use and development of everyone likes of me. I was able to get over across the city. my aversion to Shakespeare by hard work. I had a look at a This book will help revive the glossary to help translate some of legacy of that great people’s the words. I read the synopses Shakespeare Library, connecting before the plays and then I sat it to the forgotten history of down and read his plays over and Birmingham as a pioneering over again. I made them mine and cultural centre. It initiates a much in time I began to appreciate how bigger project, which will seek to no other writer in the English engage and involve ordinary language has continually reflected people from all of the city’s diverse such detailed characters in communities with this fantastic incredible life-and-death cultural resource. I’m proud to be circumstances. I was dealing with that project’s patron. a gap in my knowledge and as I practised, I have ironically made ‘Everything to everybody,’ urged a career for myself as a the Library’s visionary founder, Shakespearean actor. George Dawson. What belongs to Britain, belongs to you. No So you can imagine my obstacles, no gaps, no separation. excitement to discover that It remains an inspiring and Birmingham, my home city – relevant challenge. 4 5 EvERything tO EveryBODy Introduction Tom Epps Birmingham City Council Lead for the ‘Everything to Everybody’ Project William Shakespeare is the world’s the Library is one of Birmingham’s most famous playwright. He was – perhaps the UK’s – most born in 1564, about 25 miles from important cultural treasures. Birmingham, in Stratford-upon- Avon. This book starts to explain why in Birmingham the very first After more than 400 years, his collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays continue to be performed works – the famous First Folio – around the world. The stories he is proudly stamped as belonging tells and characters he describes to ‘Birmingham Free Libraries’. have influenced the way people And that says so much about think and the language we use. Birmingham’s commitment to In the Victorian period, when a truly democratic culture. Birmingham was rapidly growing It begins to make sense of the fact into a major industrial city, that a Russian deputation from Shakespeare’s writing had a behind the Iron Curtain thought surprising impact on how the it worth their while to deposit town developed and helped form three hundred gifts from Soviet the basis of the modern city. territories even in the depths of the Cold War. In 1868, Birmingham was the first place in the world to open a public In the 1860s, public libraries were library dedicated to Shakespeare’s a very new invention. Some of the works and ideas. Unlike most most powerful and influential towns, Birmingham believed that people of the day questioned absolutely everyone should be whether ordinary working men able to learn about Shakespeare and women really needed access and decide for themselves to information and new ideas. whether his stories helped them understand the world they lived In Birmingham, a radical young in. At a time when most people thinker called George Dawson took their lead from the Christian led his adopted town in an bible, the very notion that a local ambitiously brave new direction. writer could also provide He believed that everyone, no important lessons for life was a matter what job they did or bold and very forward-thinking background they came from, concept. should have the right to learn about everything. Dawson More than 150 years later, passionately argued that Birmingham’s Shakespeare Birmingham Public Library Memorial Library has grown should include the very best into one of the world’s largest and books, freely available to most significant collections of everyone. Shakespeare material. With about 100,000 items, including books, photographs, films, production posters, and theatre programmes, 6 Birmingham’s Shakespeare Memorial Library To mark the 300th anniversary of mavericks like him that we now cities that there were better ways Shakespeare’s birth, Dawson and have many of the freedoms we of living together. Through a a group of his closest friends enjoy today. combination of Shakespeare’s decided that Birmingham should genius and Dawson’s daring be home to the greatest collection In 21st-century Birmingham, ambition, Birmingham helped of Shakespeare books in the world. everybody understands that we define the modern world. They insisted that a special room all have the right to make our should be built for these books, own decisions and have our own The Birmingham Shakespeare the most beautiful room in opinions. Democracy gives Memorial Library is something Birmingham, and most everyone a say in how their town we can all be very proud of. importantly, it should be freely and country is run. Everybody is It also challenges us today to be open to everyone. free to enjoy art and culture, as inclusive and ambitious as whether it is music, film, design, we possibly can. It might be hard to believe now, writing or fashion. It was in but at the time Dawson’s Victorian Birmingham that many suggestions were completely of these modern freedoms were revolutionary. It’s thanks to born. Birmingham showed other Above: First Folio title page, 1623 6 7 EvERything tO EveryBODy The ‘Our Shakespeare Club’ Left to right: Sam Timmins looking for Shakespeare’s footprints on the banks of the Rea; The Shakespeare Memorial Library in 1868, as shown in Harper’s Weekly; George Dawson The Birmingham ‘Our and cultural development of Birmingham, not just the Shakespeare Club’ was formed Birmingham and its citizens. privileged few. The Birmingham by George Dawson and his friend, George Dawson outlined the idea Shakespeare Memorial Library the antiquarian Samuel Timmins. in a letter to Aris’s Birmingham was officially founded in April Other members included the Gazette in 1861: 1864 to celebrate the 300th architect John Henry anniversary of Shakespeare’s Chamberlain, newspaper editor ‘I wanted to see founded in birth. J. T. Bunce and the Liberal Birmingham a Shakespeare politician William Harris. Library, which should contain Housed in a specially decorated [as far as practicable] every room, which was completed in The group met regularly ‘to edition and every translation of 1868, the Shakespeare Collection discuss and exchange views under Shakespeare; all the commentators, had pride of place in the town’s the common bond of concern good, bad and indifferent; in short, first free public library. Thanks and celebration of all things every book connected with the life to the enthusiasm and energy Shakespearean’. The Club’s early or works of our great poet. I would of Dawson and his friends, the discussions resulted in a proposal add portraits of Shakespeare, and collection grew to over 7,000 for a Shakespeare Library for all the pictures etc illustrative of his volumes by 1878. the town. works. This collection should have a room devoted exclusively to it; The group believed that a small endowment and some Birmingham, the biggest town trustees zealous for its preservation.’ in Shakespeare’s county of Warwickshire, was the natural To today’s way of thinking, that home for this new library. Rather sounds like an academic research than a statue, they wanted a living institute. But Dawson was monument, one which would act determined to give the very best as a catalyst for the educational of human culture to everyone in 8 Birmingham’s Shakespeare Memorial Library Birmingham in the Early 19th Century Early 19th-century Birmingham Although the town finally gained limited role previously was a rapidly developing town.