The Birmingham Shakespeare Memorial Library

Summary

I want to see founded in Birmingham a Shakespeare Library which should contain (as far as practicable) every edition and every translation of Shakespeare; all the commentators, good, bad, and indifferent; in short, every book connected with the life or works of our great poet. I would add portraits of Shakespeare, and all the pictures, &c., illustrative of his works.

So, in the columns of Aris's Birmingham Gazette, wrote George Dawson, the celebrated Birmingham preacher, lecturer and politician, in the year 1861. He was writing in his capacity of President of the local Shakespeare Club and in furtherance of an idea first publicly mooted by another prominent citizen, Samuel Timmins, in 1858. The year 1863 saw the formation of a committee to pursue the project and collect donations. On 23 April 1864, the tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth, the then Mayor of Birmingham, William Holliday, gave a public breakfast at a local hotel, when a number of volumes were presented and an address and deed of gift were received and accepted by the Mayor on behalf of the town. In accordance with the deed of gift, a room was set apart in the Central Public Library, and, on 23 April 1868, the Shakespeare Memorial Library was opened to the public.