THE Mitchell Library, home to the City Archives, is one of Glasgow’s most iconic buildings.
The library owes its existence (and name) to Stephen Mitchell, a Linlithgow-born tobacco manufacturer. In 1820, Mitchell took over the business his great-grandfather started in the West Lothian town in 1723. He moved the operation to Glasgow soon after, first to Candleriggs, then St Andrew’s Square.
Mitchell died in 1874 and bequeathed the bulk of his estate to “form the nucleus of a fund for the establishment and endowment of a large public library in Glasgow, with all the modern accessories connected therewith.” The total sum amounted to £70,000 – around £6.5 million in today’s money.
Charing Cross is the Mitchell Library’s third home. The first opened in November 1877, occupying two floors of a building in Ingram Street. This building still stands; more recently occupied by the Italian Kitchen restaurant and Ingram Wynd pub.
From the outset the Mitchell Library was intended as an institution open to all. “Let it not be said that the Mitchell Library would be a library for the rich,” said the Town Clerk of the time, James Marwick. “The command of such appliances of knowledge as the Mitchell Library will offer to every person in Glasgow is a boon which cannot be regarded as in any sense limited to a class.”
Upon its opening, the Mitchell held 15,000 volumes. The first book requested was a Latin work concerning 16th century court decisions in St Andrews. By 1891 it had 89,000 volumes and had moved to Miller Street. In 1904 the council decided to construct a new purpose-built Mitchell Library in North Street, launching a competition for its design. As well as drawings of the successful submission by architect William Whitie, the City Archives holds many of the unsuccessful entries, including this by Horatio Bromhead, giving a tantalising glimpse of what the building might have looked like...
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The Mitchell Library that generations of Glaswegians know and love opened in October 1911, four years after the memorial stone was laid by a great library philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie. Lord Rosebery, the former Prime Minister, conducted the ceremony, unlocking the Mitchell’s front door with a gold key and describing it as “the national library of the West”. Sadly we will never know what Rosebery or Carnegie made of the library’s famous carpets, which were laid years later and have legions of devotees on social media.
The Mitchell continues to aspire to its original aim, to, “as far as practical, represent every phase of human thought and every variety of human opinion.” Since 1984 it has housed the City Archives, a wonderful source of information about Glasgow and its people, from the 12th century to the 21st.
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