History of Central Library

Wolverhampton Central Library is a Grade II* listed building, opened in 1902 and designed by Henry T Hare, an architect with Beaux Arts training.

It was commissioned in a wave of public spirited initiative to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, using funds raised by the Mayor, Alderman S Craddock, and by a grant of £1,000 from Andrew Carnegie.

This new free library improved public access to information and reading material, replacing its cramped predecessor in the old Garrick Street Police Station. It provided newspaper and magazine reading rooms, a lending library and a reference library.

The building is one of Hare’s finest works, his first library, though he had already been acclaimed for his municipal buildings at Stafford and Oxford. Hare later went on to build another seven libraries - more than any other architect - four of which are still libraries, two museums and one houses the English National Opera Company.

The design was chosen in 1898, through limited competition confined to twelve selected architects. The information provided in the brief was very meagre indeed - it consisted of a site plan, details of the financial and other constraints involved and a list of rooms and their sizes - much was left to the discretion and imagination of the competitors.

Hare’s original plan has an elegant simplicity and can be understood readily as two rectangular spaces for the principal rooms and a triangular space between them for circulation, administration and offices. He conformed to the brief in every detail save one - his plan, when assessed for cost, was considerably more expensive than had been stipulated. Nevertheless, the design was so good, that additional funds were raised.

The exterior has a tripartite theme of three related, but distinct facades. The entrance facade is the architect’s centrepiece and is decorated with a frieze under the triple window which carries the Royal Coat of Arms and those of Wolverhampton. The other two facades celebrate English literary giants - Chaucer, Dryden, Pope, Shelley, Byron and Spenser on one side and Milton and Shakespeare on the other.

Colour is important to the success of the exterior design, with that of the bricks contrasting with the terracotta.  The building is in a free, individualistic style, but with French, Italian and Flemish influences. 

Internally the basic logic of the plan maximises the available space in four large well proportioned rooms, which are approached through a wide entrance hall and the impressive oval staircase. The library building today is not swamped by the proximity of buildings alongside or opposite, as is often the case with smaller public buildings.

An extension, for a newsroom and a students’ room, was added in 1936 and a small brick and concrete extension at the rear in the 1970s.

Henry Hare went on to be President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, became an authority on the planning of library buildings (publishing various papers) and has been described as “one of the outstanding figures in modern, architectural life”.