London Library

The London Library

Entrance to the London Library in James's Square
Formation	1841
Type	Subscription library
Location	14 St. James's Square, London
Membership	c7,000
Patron	Elizabeth II
President	Sir Tom Stoppard
Chairman of Trustees	Sir Howard Davies.
Librarian	Inez Lynn
Website	http://www.londonlibrary.co.uk

The London Library is one of the world's largest independent lending libraries, and one of the UK's leading literary institutions. It was founded in 1841 on the initiative of Thomas Carlyle, who was dissatisfied with some of the policies at the British Museum Library. It is located at 14 St. James's Square, in the St James's area of the City of Westminster, London, which has been its home since 1845. Membership is open to all, on payment of an annual subscription; and life and corporate memberships are also available. As of March 2015 the Library had 6,708 members.

T. S. Eliot, a long-serving President of the Library, argued in 1952 in an address to members that, "whatever social changes come about, the disappearance of the London Library would be a disaster to civilisation".

The London Library is a self-supporting, independent institution. It is a registered charity whose sole aim is the advancement of education, learning, and knowledge. It was originally incorporated by Royal Charter on 13 June 1933, with a supplemental Royal Charter granted on 21 October 1988. On 6 July 2004, the Queen granted the Library a new Royal Charter, which revoked both the 1933 and 1968 charters. It has its own byelaws and the power to make or amend its rules. It has a royal patron, an elected president and vice presidents, and is administered by an elected board of a maximum of 15 trustees, including the Chairman and the Treasurer.

The chief instigator in the Library's foundation was Thomas Carlyle. He had become frustrated by the facilities available at the British Museum Library, where he was often unable to find a seat (obliging him to perch on ladders), where he complained that the enforced close confinement with his fellow readers gave him a "museum headache", where the books were unavailable for loan, and where he found the library's collections of pamphlets and other material relating to the French Revolution and English Civil Wars inadequately catalogued. In particular, he developed an antipathy for the Keeper of Printed Books, Anthony Panizzi (despite the fact that Panizzi had allowed him many privileges not granted to other readers), and criticised him, as the "respectable Sub-Librarian", in a footnote to an article published in the Westminster Review. Carlyle's eventual solution, with the support of a number of influential friends, was to call for the establishment of a private subscription library from which books could be borrowed.