The First War and After

But changes were already in the air. From 1914 to 1918 the Isle of Wight became a virtual fortress as additional troops were quartered on the Island to guard against possible German invasion.

The years of the First World War had a mixed effect on the library service. At the October, 1914 meeting of the Sub-Committee Arthur Kemp reported that the large increase in the number of books issued on history and travel was accounted for by the demand for information about countries involved in the fighting. In April of 1915 he was able to report that the library had been of considerable service to the officers at Parkhurst Barracks.

However, the war gradually reduced services. In October, 1915 the Reading Room closed at 9 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. A year later, because of more stringent lighting regulations, it closed at dusk. As the war ended and Island life gradually returned to normal the only changes were a continuation of the E10 worth of books to assist young adults and a warning that if the offenders stealing periodicals from the Reading Room were caught, they would be prosecuted. The notice appeared to work, because the stealing soon stopped. By the middle of 1919 the number of books issued was on the increase and Arthur Kemp had his salary increased to E155 per year. At the same time a Director of Education was appointed and the library service was placed firmly under his control.

As the number of books issued grew so did the percentage of fiction. During the war years less than 33% of the books issued were fiction but by the early 1920's the percentage had risen to 40, although few additional works of fiction had been added to the library service. In fact, apart from some donations and occasional re-binding, the stock still consisted of the books that Sir Charles Seely had provided in 1904; and the majority of those books had come from the Newport Free Jubilee Club which Charles Seely had opened in 1887.

Therefore by 1924 the majority of the books were at least twenty years old, and, despite re-binding, must have been in a deplorable state. The change to a fiction reading public probably arose because people required some light relief in the immediate post-war years. During the early nineteen-twenties the number of books borrowed remained static at around nine thousand a month. With closed access borrowing, few additional books, and no help for Arthur Kemp this was hardly surprising. In fact probably the most amazing thing of all is that continued use was made of a very limited library service.

Students were specifically catered for in 1922 when the library took up for the first time the loan facilities of the Central Library for Students. Thereafter the urgently-required books so far precluded because of expense from being bought for stock could now be borrowed. But few other changes were made and the service was allowed to stagnate. The basic problem within the service was a lack of finance.

The endowment from Sir Charles Seely producing £100 every year was in fact payable by Newport Corporation in lieu of water payments to the Seely family, and rarely reached a complete £lOO. No other monies worth considering were received and by 1924 the £IOO would not even pay the librarian's salary. The library service was existing, but little more. In May of 1924 reality slowly began to reach the High Sub-Committee and it gave careful consideration to the question of adopting the Public Libraries Act of 1919 so that financial assistance could be granted from the rates towards the maintenance and improvement of the library service. The Sub-Committee considered the question and at the September, 1924 meeting recommended:

  • 1) That the County Council be recommended to adopt the Public Libraries Acts, 1892 - 1919 for the whole Administrative County of the Isle of Wight except for the Urban District of Sandown.
  • 2) That the County Council be recommended to delegate to the Education Committee all the powers and duties of the Council under the Public Libraries Act except the powers of raising a rate or borrowing money.

Both recommendations were approved at the November, 1924 meeting of the County Council, powers and duties being delegated to the Higher Education Sub-Committee. Thus in 1924, twenty years after its inauguration the Seely Library became the County Seely Library with its parentage remaining unchanged.

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