Women's Library

The Women's Library in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets is Britain's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement, especially concentrating on Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Library has over 60,000 books and pamphlets. In addition to scholarly works on women's history, there are biographies, popular works, government publications, and some works of literature. In February 2007, its collections were Designated by the UK Museums, Libraries and Archives Council for their "outstanding national and international importance".

The Women's Library is based just east of the City of London, where the wealth of the City rapidly shades into the poverty of Tower Hamlets. It is part of London Metropolitan University.

Its origin derives from the London National Society for Women's Suffrage, established in 1867, though the library was not formally organised until the 1920s, and the first Librarian, Vera Douie, was not appointed until 1 January 1926. At this time, and for many years afterwards, it was called the Women's Service Library, in accordance with the name of the society which since the outbreak of World War 1 had been called the London Society for Women's Service. Vera Douie remained in post for 41 years, during which time she took a small but interesting society library and turned it into a major resource with an international reputation. It was originally housed in a converted pub in Marsham Street, Westminster, which in the 1930s was developed into Women's Service House, a major women's centre within walking distance of Parliament. Members of the society and library included writers such as Vera Brittain and Virginia Woolf, as well as politicians, most notably Eleanor Rathbone. During World War II it suffered bomb damage, and the library had no permanent home until 1957, when it moved to Wilfred Street, near Victoria railway station. By this time, the society and library had changed their names to the Fawcett Society and the Fawcett Library, in commemoration of the non-militant suffrage leader Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and of her daughter, Philippa Fawcett, an influential educationist and financial supporter of the society.

In the 1970s the society found it increasingly difficult to maintain the library, which was rescued by the then City of London Polytechnic (now London Metropolitan University) in 1977. It then spent the best part of 25 years in a cramped basement increasingly liable to flooding, while increasing considerably its stock, its user base and its contacts with other such resources both nationally and internationally. In 1998 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded a grant of £4.2 million towards a new building on the site of the old East End wash houses in Old Castle Street, London E1, which opened to the public in February 2002. The reopened institution changed its name from the "Fawcett Library" to "The Women's Library".

The Library hosts a changing programme of exhibitions in its museum space; topics have included women's suffrage, beauty queens, office work, 1980s politics and prostitution. It holds public talks, shows films, runs reading groups and short courses and offers guided tours for free. The Reading Room itself is free to use and open to everyone, male and female.

External links

* [http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/thewomenslibrary/ Official website]
* [http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/genesis/ GENESIS] - Guide to sources for women's history in the British Isles, maintained and developed by The Women's Library