The photographs in this week’s trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane look at the Carnegie Library in Dunfermline.
One hundred and forty years ago, on August 29, 1883, this first Carnegie Library opened its doors in Dunfermline. The foundation stone was laid two years earlier by Andrew Carnegie’s mother Margaret in 1881.
Sharron McColl, Local Studies Supervisor at Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries, will deliver a lecture entitled ‘The Day the Foundation Stone was Laid’ on Thursday, July 27, at 2pm.
Our first photograph was taken shortly after the library’s opening and is a view looking down St Margaret’s Street. Just past the library, St Margaret’s Hall can be seen on the right that had opened a few years earlier. Comprising three storeys it had a large hall with a gallery, and an orchestra and organ gallery, which held about 1,400 people. A lesser hall planned for lectures held 600, and the building also had committee rooms, and a reading and library room. On the top floor there were two large billiard rooms.
The Hall was formally opened in 1878 by Henry Campbell-Bannerman, MP for Stirling (and future Prime Minister). The Dunfermline Dramatic Society was born in the Hall in 1885 and continues today. Plays, variety shows, musical comedy, and concerts were staged and meetings and lectures held. It was also a venue for music classes.
Our next photograph shows readers using the library in the 1950s.
Sharron will also give a potted history of the library provision that preceded the opening of the world’s first ever Carnegie Library: “Many people think that the opening of the present library was the beginning of the provision of library services in Dunfermline but there had been a number of other services that provided books for the people stretching back to the late 1700s.
"In my talk I will look at the first subscription library, church libraries and the Tradesmans Library which Carnegie’s own father William was heavily involved in.
"I will also look at what else was happening in Dunfermline at the time the Foundation Stone was laid. We have agreed to have on loan at the Reading Room in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries (DCLG) the trowel and mallet used by Margaret Carnegie to lay the foundation stone of the Carnegie Library and these will be on display until Friday, August 18, courtesy of the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum, and these will be available for people to see at the lecture."
Our next photograph is of the reference department taken in 1921. It is now incorporated into the new DCLG building and called the Canmore Room, which is used for gatherings and public lectures.
The final image is a view of the library from the bottom of Guildhall Street taken in 1906.
Tickets for Sharron McColl’s lecture on Thursday, July 27, at 2pm in DCLG are available priced £5 from Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries. A second lecture entitled ‘The Opening of the First Carnegie Library’ will follow on Tuesday, August 29, at 11am in the same venue.
More photographs like these can be seen in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries as well as at facebook.com/olddunfermline.
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