by Jerry Green
A mutiny which occurred at Upper Norwood library was among the historical gems revealed to members of Norwood Society’s local history group at their latest meeting.
Jerry Savage, the library’s reference and locaql history specialist, told how the first chief librarian William A Stobie was challenged for control of the library by his senior assistant George Churchill and two junior assistants George Stevens and George Allard.
Stobie was told his behaviour was being monitored and written records kept.
“Effectively they started to blackmail him and warn him that if he did not like the new regime they would go to Mr Jast, the chief librarian at Croydon”said Jerry – even though, strictly speaking, Jast did not have jurisdiction over the independent Upper Norwood library.
Stobie was accused of being overly strict – an accusation he rejected. “All I have done is to encourage them to be more industrious in their work” he said.
Jerry Savage told the meeting at the Phoenix centre, Westow street: “I suspect that Churchill was someone who would have been an awkward employee anywhere. Churchill had a total lack of interest in his work. What he did like to do was disappear off to the basement to read books like Moll Flanders.
“What I think is the clincher for me is that Stobie altered the staffing timetable so Churchill could have two-hour breaks to travel to Croydon and back for hot dinners which I think we can consider to be bending over backwards!”
Churchill and Stevens were sacked by the library’s joint committee – but allowed to work out their month’s notice.
Stobie – who had been chief librarian from the start, left shortly afterwards – possibly quite traumatised by events – to become chief cataloguer in the public library of South Australia in Adelaide. In the same year – 1906 – he was succeeded by Walter Henry Ransome from the Lambeth library service.
The other chief librarians have been Dorothy Owers (1925 – 1952) and the library’s first female librarian . A flamboyant and well-known figure in Upper Norwood she did a lot to expand the library, making it a place where lectures were held after the library had closed its doors for the night and a place where exhibitions were staged.
Owers had joined the library as an assistant in 1916 although there is some doubt she ever became a qualified librarian, he added.
The 1930s saw the opening of the children’s library by W C Berwick Sayers, chief librarian of Croydon for many years and author or co-author of two books on Croydon in the First and Second World wars. The guest speaker was A E W Mason, author of ‘The Four Feathers’.
Among the regular visitors to the library during this time were William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) who lived in Farquhar Road and actress Margaret Lockwood who borrowed ‘The Wheel Spins’ by Ethel Lina White – the book on which one of her best-known films ‘The Lady Vanishes’ was based.
During the Second World war the library basement also housed a 14 -strong team of fire watchers who worked on a rota made up of 117 people.
The other chief librarians have been Lawrance H Cuddy (1952 to 1977); Pat Scott, the second lady librarian (1978 – 1990) who was succeeded by her deputy Christopher Dobb (1990-2000) who standardised the library’s name as Upper Norwood joint library after noticing people giving the library various names and Bradley Millington (2001 – present).
The idea for the library began in 1895 when representatives from Croydon and Lambeth – then the Lambeth Vestry – met to discuss the possibility of setting up a library to serve the border area where the two boroughs met. The contract to build the library was awarded to Henry Leney, an Anerley builder.
Opened on July 4th 1900 it had a ground floor lending library with 8,500 volumes and a newsroom. The first floor was left unused until 1903 when the reference library was established.
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