Read books at West Greenwich Library

Your author spent a pleasant few hours reading at West Greenwich Library yesterday afternoon, and though much of the interior is that of a functional modern library, the fabric of the building itself is much grander. The building dates from 1907, the library was funded by Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born American tycoon and philanthropist who paid for thousands of libraries, in the USA, Canada, the UK and Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, and Fiji.


Caroline tells us that, whilst working in a cotton mill, Carnegie had made use of the library of a Colonel James Anderson, which was open to working boys on Saturday evenings, and a passion for libraries was born. He went on to make lucrative investments in railways and steel and by his death had given away $350 million in philanthropy. The people of Greenwich still reap the benefits of this philanthropy, in the form of Sir A B Thomas' West Greenwich Library and Sydney R J Smith's East Greenwich Library.

For more, see http://www.thegreenwichphantom.co.uk/2009/08/greenwichs-alternative-domes-3/