Further Legislation
The 1850 Act was noteworthy because it established the principle of free public libraries, but in practice it was unsatisfactory. It placed many limitations on the type of councils that could adopt it, the amount of money that the boroughs were permitted to spend and the ways in which this money could be spent. Efforts were later made to develop the Act further and remove many of these restrictions. In 1855, the maximum rate that boroughs could charge to fund libraries was increased to 1d. Like the 1850 Act, this Bill had to be guided through the House of Commons by William Ewart. It met with a great deal of opposition and Ewart was obliged to abandon a proposal to enable municipal boroughs to adopt it by simple resolution of the town council. There was some confusion regarding the provision of public libraries outside corporate towns, that is those towns incorporated by legal enactment and entitled to pass by-laws and use a common seal. This resulted in difficulties in extending public library provision to rural areas. The 1855 Act tried to resolve these difficulties by stating that a library authority could be a borough council, an improvement board or commission, a parish vestry or group of vestries, provided they covered a minimum population of 5,000. Since the 18th century, improvement boards had been established in many urban areas to take responsibility for paving, lighting and cleaning of streets, but over time their functions became wider in scope. From 1835 onwards, their responsibilities were assumed by elected town councils in the reformed boroughs but they continued in the urban areas outside the boroughs. Becoming a public library authority was another extension of their authority. In 1866, an amending Act was passed which eliminated entirely the population limit and replaced the two-thirds majority previously required for adoption with a simple majority. It also allowed neighbouring parishes to combine with an existing or potential library authority. This Act covered Scotland, England and Wales and in 1867 another Act was passed in Scotland to amend and consolidate it, which established a form of library committee composed of a maximum of twenty members, of which half were to be members of the council and the other half to be selected by the council from householders.
Read more about this topic: Public Libraries Act 1850
Famous quotes containing the word legislation:
“The laboring man and the trade-unionist, if I understand him, asks only equality before the law. Class legislation and unequal privilege, though expressly in his favor, will in the end work no benefit to him or to society.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Strictly speaking, one cannot legislate love, but what one can do is legislate fairness and justice. If legislation does not prohibit our living side by side, sooner or later your child will fall on the pavement and I’ll be the one to pick her up. Or one of my children will not be able to get into the house and you’ll have to say, “Stop here until your mom comes here.” Legislation affords us the chance to see if we might love each other.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)