Brotherton Library

Brotherton Library
Main reading room at the Brotherton Library
General information
Status	Grade II listed
Type	Library
Architectural style	Beaux-Arts
Location	Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, England
Coordinates	53°48′29″N 1°33′12″W / 53.8080°N 1.5534°W / 53.8080; -1.5534
Construction started	1930
Opened	1936
Design and construction
Architect	Lanchester & Lodge
Website
University of Leeds Libraries website

The Brotherton Library is a 1936 Grade II listed Beaux-Arts building with some art deco fittings, located on the main campus of the University of Leeds. It was designed by the firm of Lanchester & Lodge, and is named after Edward Brotherton, 1st Baron Brotherton, who in 1927 donated £100,000 to the university as funding for its first purpose-built library.

The Brotherton Library is now the principal component of what has become Leeds University Library. Initially, it contained all of the university's books and manuscripts, with the exception of books housed in the separate Medical Library and Clothworkers' (Textile) Library. Currently, its contents cover the main collections in arts, social sciences and law, and various Special Collections. It also houses the University Library's administration. Science and engineering books and a multiple-copy Student Library are located in the Edward Boyle Library, opened in 1975. The Health Sciences Library, housed in the Worsley Building since 1977, contains the University Library's medical and related collections, with a small satellite library at St James's University Hospital. Leeds University Library is also responsible for the University Archives and The University Gallery.

The predecessor of the Brotherton was a library located in the undercroft of College Hall, an 1894 building of the Yorkshire College, which was founded as the Leeds School of Medicine in 1831. The college became part of the Victoria University in 1887, and College Hall became the Great Hall of the University of Leeds when the university received its royal charter in 1904.

Fanny Passavant, the first Librarian of the college and subsequently of the university, retired in 1919. At that point, the library contained approximately 65,000 volumes, but the Great Hall's undercroft had long been full and the overflow of books had been distributed around the campus. Passavant's successor, Dr Richard Offor, was charged with the task of building a new University Library, and Lord Brotherton agreed to fund it. Brotherton laid the building's foundation stone in 1930, but died later in the same year. His collection of some 80,000 rare books and manuscripts was given to the university in 1936, along with an endowment to enable appropriate purchases to be made in the future. A suite of rooms to house the Brotherton Collection formed part of the new Brotherton Library.