08 November 2009

FoDL: The Durning Library's first 120 years MONDAY NOVEMBER 16th

MONDAY NOVEMBER 16th

The Durning Library's first 120 years

Many Victorian rate-payers feared public libraries – giving the poor access to dangerous books, and even entertaining them on the rates!

But disabled Jemina Durning Smith founded two. The opening of Lambeth's, in 1889, wasn't a foregone conclusion... and the dangers didn't end there. To celebrate the Durning Library’s first 120 years, Jon Newman of Lambeth Archives tells of Jemina, her family of philanthropists and the controversial libraries movement in Lambeth.

He will bring some Durning Library archives, and talk about how people were expected to use catalogues to borrow the books, all safely shelved out of reach. This amounted to censorship – "managing stock for the lower classes".

6.45pm for 7.15pm at

Durning Library, 167 Kennington Lane (at Kennington Cross)

FREE (suggested donation towards costs £2).

Refreshments.

Friends of the Durning Library

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