Cockermouth people have been able to borrow books for two hundred years. The first library we know of was housed in the old Grammar School building, founded in 1762 by the associates of the late Dr. Thomas Bray and later augmented by Dr. Kenne, Bishop of Chester. Managed by trustees appointed by the Bishop, it began with 343 volumes, and was described as
“intended to be a Lending Library for the Use and Benefit of such Clergymen as shall be nominated thereto by the Trustees”.
The value of books borrowed had to be deposited with the librarian. Those of octavo or quarto size might be kept for three months, folio volumes for six. [1]
The Bray Library was restricted in its membership, but the Cockermouth Book Club founded a little later in 1785 was open to all. There were strict rules – over twenty listed in the 1819 catalogue. [2] The annual subscription was 10s-6d. [52 ½ p], with an admission fee of 2s-6d. [12 ½ p], and all subscribers who did not live in the country had to attend a monthly meeting in the Globe Hotel absence carried a fine of 6d! Any member present might propose the purchase of a book and lots were drawn to determine the first readers of newly acquired volumes. The time allowed for reading was determined by the value of the book – from two days for one worth 6d. or less, to three weeks for one valued at over 8s. Town readers were allowed only one book at a time, but country members might take two and keep them for two weeks if valued less than 6s [30p] or three weeks if more expensive. A catalogue of 1819 listed about 450 volumes with a further list of 60 missing, for which subscribers were urged to search in their private libraries! The librarian, at that time Jacob Hilton, was paid Is [5p] a year for each member.’ Sometime before 1847 the Book Club changed its name to the Cockermouth Library. [3] Time for reading was now based on date of purchase (new works four days in the town, seven in the country, doubled after the first demands had been met) and a fine of one old penny a day introduced for books overdue. The catalogue listed nearly 600 volumes, and periodicals such as the Edinburgh Review, Blackwood’s and Tail’s magazines, etc. were available. Thomas Bailey and Son, printers at 73 Main Street, housed the library and were paid 2s. per annum out of each subscription. This was possibly the subscription library of 65 members mentioned as being at Bailey’s in 1829. [4]
Jollie records the old library at Jacob Hilton’s and the new library at Thomas Bailey’s as both existing in 1811, so possibly the two merged some time early in the century.
Control of the library passed to the town council who in December 1898 met trustees of the Savings Bank regarding the hire of two rooms for a public library. The council allocated £30 for the purchase of books in 1901 and in 1902 were negotiating for the present site. [5] The Carnegie Library opened in 1904, on the site of single storey cottages and part of Messrs. Walker’s yard. Gifts from donors, to whom the minutes periodically recorded the committee’s gratitude, brought the stock to 3,000 volumes. The bell from the dismantled Waugh clock and other mementoes found their way there. [6] Evening classes were held in the premises and during the war the lower room was an ARP post. In both buildings the town library only opened twice a week in its early days, but it was well used. Until 1932 books were asked for at the counter, but in that year open access was introduced.
The library remained in the control of the UDC and did not become a branch of the County Library, as did most of the Cumberland town libraries. By modern standards it was small and out-of date, restricted to the upper floor. The building was extended in the early 1970s and in the local government reorganisation of 1974 the library entered the western division of the County Library.
The Mechanics Institute had a subscription newsroom where the London and provincial papers and the chief periodicals could be seen. In 1858 there was a newsroom in the Court House, subscription a guinea a year, and there appear to have been others in the town, on which the records are confused. The Institute also had a library with both reference and circulating sections. It began with some 500 books but had grown to 2,300 in 1858, the year in which General Benson made his bequest. There were in 1874 – “4000 volumes of standard works, carefully chosen, on scientific and general literature”, but “no work on politics of the day or any subject of polemical divinity”. From the beginning the library and reading room were open six evenings a week and the latter also on Sundays from 1 to 9.30 p.m. [5] There were a number of circulating libraries run by booksellers and printers. A bookselling and stationery business, with a circulating library, situated in the Market Place changed hands in 1784. Books could be ordered for purchase from London.
Cockermouth for many years depended for its news, as did the rest of Britain, on manuscript news sheets written in London and distributed throughout the country. By the mid-18th century these had been replaced by printed newspapers, having a large proportion of parliamentary news and taxed at 2d. or 3d. a copy by the government in an effort to prevent the circulation of radical newssheets.
The invention of the steam-driven press in 1814 gave a great impetus to newspaper production. The tax rose to 4d, but then fell when new industry needed the advertising, to be abolished completely by Gladstone. The tax on an advertisement, which had been as much as 4s-6d, disappeared completely in 1853. Although papers became more plentiful, Cockermouth’s reading rooms continued and increased, one of the new ones at 16 Main Street continuing into the 20th century. [9]
In addition to the national papers Cockermouth was served by a number of local publications. The first of these was ‘The Cumberland Pacquet and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser’, established in 1774 and printed by John Ware in Whitehaven. At first it carried much national and foreign news, including official government notices, and local news was scarce. Gradually local news increased and a copy of ‘The Pacquet’ gives a good picture of life and interests in the late 18th century. The American War features prominently, with lists of prisoners, details of Whitehaven ships lost, notices of deserters and advertisements for naval recruits. One could find enclosure acts, shipping news, coach time-tables, toll gate lettings, sales of timber, apprentices, strayed horses, shares in ships, but above all patent medicines for all possible complaints. From its inception it was available in the London coffee houses where merchants met to do business.
There were a number of short-lived ventures more germane to Cockermouth. ‘The Cockermouth Miscellany’ was first published (by T. Bailey and Son) on 11 March 1843 for 2d., selling 1100 copies of the first number. [10] It appeared monthly, was characterised by verbosity and long involved sentences, had letters to the editor, but was probably killed after only 12 issues by the duty on paper and the stamp tax, in spite of the price having risen to 2 Y2d. While it lasted it was truly miscellaneous in its news and items.
In 1854 appeared ‘The Cockermouth Miscellany and General Advertiser’, this time produced by 1. Naisbit, a printer at 53 Market Place. Available for Id. on the first day of each month it did not last long. The following year there was extant the ‘Weekly Spectator and Cockermouth Advertiser’, published by Daniel Fidler. In 1857 came ‘The Cockermouth Magazine and Advertiser’ from W.H. Moss, printer and bookseller of 59 Main Street, again a penny and monthly but a step forward on its predecessors as it illustrated the stories.’ The Cockermouth Free Press’, produced in Station Street and delivered free to all houses,[11] lasted from 1899 to 1918. ‘The Cockermouth Daily Press’ began on 31 August 1914 and was probably an early war casualty. ‘The Maryport News’ described itself as including ‘The Cockermouth Chronicle’ and was first issued in 1885, surviving the war until 1919. The second war was spanned by ‘The Cockermouth and District Advertiser’, which suspended publication on 24 December 1940 and reappeared on 7 March 1946, but not for long.
Meanwhile a twice-weekly area paper, ‘The Whitehaven News’, began about 1853 and ten years later had a circulation of over 5000. It claimed to serve not only Cockermouth but the whole of Cumberland from Millom to Carlisle with readers in Dublin, Belfast, Cardiff, etc. It survives to this day, but is now a Whitehaven district paper little read in Cockermouth.
Another survivor, closely linked with Cockermouth, is ‘The West Cumberland Times and Star’, a title taken after an amalgamation in 1967, when ‘Star’ was added. ‘The West Cumberland Times‘ first appeared on 21 March 1874, eight pages for one penny, and was described in the first editorial as
“specially devoted to the interests of the district of which Cockermouth is the natural centre and which comprises on the one hand the important maritime and manufacturing towns of Maryport and Workington, and on the other the tourist-haunted and classical region of Keswick.”
It was published by Brash Brothers and printed first in an office raised on the ruins of Mr. McQuhae’s workshop in Challoner Street, then later in a building in South Street immediately behind the Tithebarn Hotel.
In 1876 the firm bought a house and shop at 29 Station Street with direct access to the printing works behind. The shop, office and editorial rooms which this provided were retained until 1976. Since the amalgamation the editorial work has been done in Workington – the printing had already been moved from the town – and all that remains locally is a small office off Crown Street, although the ‘Times and Star’ continues to play an important role in Cockermouth life.
In its early days ‘The Times’ came out on Saturday in time for dispatch by the earliest trains and an extra market edition with the latest reports was published at noon on Mondays. Then for a considerable time there were two weekly editions on Wednesday and Saturday, but for some years it has again appeared once a week on Friday.
For a long time the paper carried a serial story which would last many weeks, that starting in No. 1 being ‘Mayhew the Mill-Spinner, or The Stolen Will‘. The well-known ‘Betty Wilson’s Cummerland Teals’ first appeared in the Times. There was a certain amount of national news as well as that of local interest and its early numbers had weekly’ features such as ‘District News’, ‘Local Gossip’, ‘Local Notes’, ‘Agricultural Jottings’ and of course advertisements and local court cases, with national murder trials in very great detail, uninhibited by modem restrictions on the press. From its first year the paper included letters from correspondents.
A related publication was ‘Cousin Charley’s Magazine’. The editor of ‘The Times’ around the turn of the century was Mr. Bleasdale, who included in the paper a children’s section written by him using the name ‘Cousin Charley’. The magazine was quite a bold venture, with stories, puzzles, jokes, anecdotes, how-to-make items, poems, etc., and was well illustrated with photographs of local children, festival queens, etc. Five shilling books were awarded as prizes for various types of contribution. In its Santa Claus Scheme the magazine made a positive effort to help poor children, organising collections of money and clothing to give Christmas parcels to poor and deserving children throughout West Cumberland, from Egremont to Wigton – new stockings, apple, orange, sweets, a Christmas card, to some a complete outfit of clothes. Cousin Charley arranged an annual concert in the Congregational Schoolroom after which the names of the children were called and they received their parcels. In 1900 over 830 pairs of stockings and more than 1000 articles of clothing were distributed, and also in this year tea was provided for 380 poor children in Workington, 260 in Cockermouth, 118 in Maryport and 140 in Whitehaven. [12]
The magazine first appeared in April 1899 and unfortunately had a short life. It cost little (a penny a month for 16 pages) and the regular feature ‘Cousin Charley’s Chat’ dealt continually with the magazine’s financial difficulties and small sales. Incentives were offered to those who gained new readers, but to no avail. Without increased sales it was not viable and to its producer’s great regret it finally’ disappeared with the issue of December 1901.
More recently ‘The Cockermouth Post’ appeared in September 1984 and after early difficulties, was taken over by Mrs Mary Macdonald in 1986. Since then it has been published regularly and distributed free, becoming a valued source of information and comment in the town. By 2006, the quality of production had been much improved and the paper was produced by Mr. Michael Craine.