How good it is to have Millom Library open. The Covid lock-down and subsequent closure brings home something of what it was like when Millom had no library. The institution that is Millom Library began with an Institute – The Millom Club and Institute – but what was that for? Probably not for entertainment. Some clues can be taken from its foundation.
The foundation stone was laid by the Managing Director of the Iron Works, Thomas Barlow Massicks J. P. on 10th August 1882. Typical of lawyers’ delays, the building lease for the property was only signed later in the year and so clearly after building work had begun. The owner of the land was the Earl of Lonsdale and the signatory for the Millom Club and Institute Co. Ltd. was Cedric Vaughan, the Managing Director of the Hodbarrow Mining Company. Barlow-Massicks had had dealings with the Lowthers for some time and they had donated the land for the building of St George’s Church which was consecrated on Good Friday 1877, largely with the Iron Works’ funds. These were serious town fathers who were building a new town to be proud of and would not have been interested in a club just for entertainment. Keeping men out of public houses would have been one of their objectives. Rather it was self-improvement which drove the venture. Typical of the age, after a shift in the mine or before the furnace, the same would come to learn algebra or philosophy for a couple of hours, to improve their lot. This would have been what were termed elsewhere “a mechanics’ institute” for learning and would hold a library for that purpose.
The Institute was an important part of the design of the new town. Millom was only named in 1866, again by Thomas Barlow-Massicks, who insisted on the name taken from the ancient name of the castle above “Port Lonsdale” or “Newhaven”. The Hodbarrow branch railway line and its embankment opened in 1867 and allowed Millom New Town to be built on former marsh. The town was designed by Wadham and Taylor, who had shortly before laid out much of Barrow in Furness and the fine avenues of Lonsdale Road and Market Street were to have led to the civic centre of the new town. But these approaches crossed busy railway lines for the growing industries and in 1874 the Furness Railway opened the road bridge over the railway. This new approach with its enlarged station, the magnificent church (both built by architects Paley and Austin) and the Market Square with its Market Hall and Local Board offices built in 1879 became the new centre of the town. The Institute followed on as did the banks which completed the square. St George’s Terrace was conceived as a superior residential street and the first occupier of Norman Nicholson’s house at Number 14 was an engineer at the mine. These houses took on more of a commercial character as the centre developed. The recreation ground too was part of a carefully planned and successful new town, which remains remarkably complete to this day.
The importance of the Institute to the new town can be seen from comparing what else was going on at the time. The low, marshland setting and hurried building and drains with no connections led to insanitary conditions and lethal epidemics. Only in 1885 could the medical officer comment favourably on sanitary conditions. So, the Institute was ranked in importance with essential sanitation. The services of a local architect appear to have been taken up. R. F. B. Lillywhite prepared a drawing of the “Institute and Club” with a similar form but with more ornate features. A “Dutch” gable above the door was built but removed in the 1960s and the roof line is probably better for it. The Mannex History and Directory of Furness of 1881 records Lillywhite’s address at Bay View, Millom. An extract of the directory for Millom and Whicham is available in the library.
The public library came into being in 1891 when the building was taken over by the Local Board for a Library, Reading Room, Science, Art and Technical School. The educational use continued. Millom Secondary School operated from the building and in 1908, an advertisement placed by Mr James Sharp (London University) and his assistants of Aberdeen and Liverpool Universities, gave details of registration for this selective, fee-paying school in the “art room” of the Institute.
The building was enlarged by taking in a yard on St George’s Road and so moving the foundation stone and by the construction of further class rooms to the side and rear.
In 1929, evening classes were being advertised in the Secondary School for English and arithmetic, book-keeping, science and dressmaking. The secondary school moved out in 1938 to the Grammar School site on Salthouse Road.
Norman Nicholson records his time at the Secondary School with some care in his autobiography “Wednesday Early Closing”. He won a scholarship and attended in 1925. Following academic successes, he continued to the small sixth form. Much of his study time was then spent in the Reading Room – now the Copeland enquiry desk – as there was no space for the sixth form, which was then only six students. However it is clear that his appreciation of literature developed in that building and he writes warmly of the discussions and lessons he took part in.
Of Course, Norman Nicholson practically lived on-site and would leave his back gate and enter the school on the other side of Library Lane. From the upper windows of Number 14 he watched the children playing in the yard before he joined himself. A gymnasium was made from a hut originally built to house refugees and moved to the school yard. Nicholson did not enjoy the gym sessions and his father thought the hut was an eyesore and hoped it would burn down – a wish he was granted. His schooling was cut short by TB and he entered his own locked-down isolation in a sanatorium in Hampshire for nearly two years. He kept in touch with Millom through the Millom Gazette and in the edition for 5th December 1930, he read that the Headmaster at speech day described him as “brilliant” and wished him well for his recovery. The Headmaster described the premises as “vile” and having only four classrooms for eight forms and sixty students and eight teachers. The academic and professional achievements of Nicholson’s contemporaries are all the more remarkable when the basic physical nature of their school is described.
Norman Nicholson did not recover quickly and never returned to school. He returned to Number 14 and lived there for the rest of his life. From there, he was remarkably industrious and took up teaching as well as writing himself. His “Man and Literature” became a standard work which drew on his experience of teaching English literature to adults, a theme that continued from the Institute. Although he lived a physically narrow life, he was intellectually expansive and well-connected. Millom Library clearly contributed to his art as it provided a rich connection to the outside. He was supported by several librarians, notably including Daniel Hay of Whitehaven Library who first proposed that his house should become a museum … somewhat before it was vacated! 20 He worked in Millom Library and acknowledged the assistance he received from the staff there. It is clear that some of the books from which he researched are still on the shelves in the Library.
In 1973, Nicholson formally opened the Millom Folk Museum in the classrooms to the rear and did so from a spot where his school desk stood.
Millom Library is likely to change again. The service is due to move to the former Network Centre at Millom School – Millom Hub. The library building is due to be changed to offices for Sellafield. This could all work very well, or very badly.
The Hub is beautifully located and with access to other space, it could become the sort of asset to the town that the Institute was. The public space and access has been reduced and reduced and so today, it would be difficult for quiet research or writing such as Nicholson’s could be done. That could change for the better, especially with the good computer services that Cumbria Libraries offer. Cumbria are developing their libraries and archives with improvement projects at Whitehaven, Barrow and Kendal. Even Ambleside Library has had a £250K make-over and that is in a village with a quarter of the population of Millom and which already has the Armitt Library and the accessible university library. It would be nice to think that Millom will receive similarly generous treatment from Cumbria.
What will come of the present Library Building? More people working in town could make good the loss of the Library to the vitality of the town centre. It would be good if the building – which is part of the planned New Town – were properly restored and treated well. This is the heart of the Town. And being the heart of the town it would be best if it were not closed to the town. So perhaps some community use could continue in this building built by and for the community? If there is conference space made in the building, perhaps this could be done so that exhibitions could be opened there when the office is closed and this may make a boring office all the more interesting for Sellafield workers. It just needs a bit of planning. Perhaps there is another Barlow-Massicks today?
You can follow-up some of the leads here in the Library. The British Newspaper Archive can be freely searched and contains The Millom Gazette and around 40 local titles. Local directories are available. The Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Archaeological and Antiquarian Society are all available, with articles going back, coincidentally, to 1866. Look for the article by Thomas Barlow-Massicks on Duddon Forge.
