| Marx Memorial Library | |
|---|---|
 Marx Memorial Library | |
| 51°31′22″N0°06′21″W / 51.5229°N 0.1057°W /51.5229; -0.1057 | |
| Location | Clerkenwell Green London,EC1R, United Kingdom |
| Type | Library |
| Established | 1933 (93 years ago) (1933) |
| Architect | James Steere |
| Branches | 1 |
| Collection | |
| Items collected | Books,journals, newspapers, magazines,prints, drawings andmanuscripts |
| Size | 60,000+ items (2021) |
| Legal deposit | No |
| Access and use | |
| Access requirements | Open to anyone with a need to use the collections and services |
| Other information | |
| Budget | £2 million GBP (2020)[1] |
| Director | Prof David McLellan (president) |
| Website | marx-memorial-library.org.uk |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
| Official name | Marx Memorial Library |
| Designated | 29 September 1972 (1972-09-29) |
| Reference no. | 1279541 |
TheMarx Memorial Library inLondon,United Kingdom is a library, archive, educational, and community outreach charity focused on Marxist and wider socialist bodies of work.[2]
The library opened in 1933, and is located at 37aClerkenwell Green, formerly home to many radical organisations and base of an important publishing operation. The building, originally opened in 1738 as theWelsh Charity School, isGrade II listed.[3][4] The library's collection comprises over 60,000 books, pamphlets, items, and newspapers onMarxism,socialism, andworking class history.[5]
The building now occupied by the library was originally built in 1737–1738 to house theWelsh Charity School.[6] It was designed by James Steer, and the construction funded by subscriptions. The school moved out to a new home in Gray's Inn Lane (nowGray's Inn Road) in 1772. The building subsequently became (in part) a public house, the Northumberland Arms; and was put to other commercial uses.
Part of it was occupied from 1872 onwards by the radical London Patriotic Society; and from 1893 (with the financial backing ofWilliam Morris) by the Twentieth Century Press Ltd, publishers ofJustice, the newspaper of theSocial Democratic Federation.
In 1902–1903 exiled Russian revolutionaryVladimir Lenin worked in the building that would become the Marx Memorial Library, publishing seventeen issues of his newspaperIskra (Spark) from within the building.[6] The office he allegedly used is preserved as a memorial to him, although this room did not in fact exist at the time he was there: however, he may have worked in an earlier office partly on its site.[7]
The Marx Memorial Library was founded in 1933, originally only occupying a part of the building but eventually taking over every room.
The library features thefrescoThe worker of the future upsetting the economic chaos of the present, painted byJack Hastings in 1935 with the assistance of the American artist,Clifford Wight.[8]
Through these changes of use, the fabric had undergone numerous alterations and dilapidations, and in 1968–1969 the building underwent a major programme of work to restore the 18th-century appearance of the front.[4] The necessary interventions and reconstructions were so drastic that the result is described by theSurvey of London as "a modern quasifacsimile – of the original only the outerquoins can have survived".[9]
The library building waslisted Grade II on theNational Heritage List for England in September 1972.[3]
As of 2021, over 60,000 items are held by the library.[5] Holdings include the first edition ofThe Red Republican (1850), theVotes for Womensuffragette newspaper, and other socialist publications.[10]
The library now also houses "The Printers Collection" consisting of the archives of the printing and papermaking unions of the UK and Ireland. The collection includes union documents, magazines, photographs, badges and memorabilia. The archive was opened in March 2009 byDerek Simpson Joint General Secretary ofUnite andTony Burke, Assistant General Secretary of Unite.
The first president of the library in 1933 wasAlex Gossip, president of theSocialist Sunday Schools.[11]
The library publishes an annual journal,Theory & Struggle, published byLiverpool University Press. Its current editor (2021) is Marjorie Mayo.[12]
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