Congratulations to Dr Steve Hewett

Congratulations go to CPHC member DR STEVE HEWETT (University of Birmingham, supervised by Dr Malcolm Dick) on his recent successful viva. His thesis The Civic Gospel and Municipal Culture: Birmingham’s Free Libraries, 1851 to 1898 is an investigation of one municipal authority through the lens of its embryonic public library service. It is an urban and social history, exploring the frequently overlooked contribution public libraries made to the growth of civic cultural landscapes. Through an investigation of the establishment of the public library service the thesis adds to the history of libraries in Birmingham locating them within the town’s wider cultural landscape and offering the first thorough academic analysis of one town’s early municipal library service. The research findings reveal that the establishment of a rate-funded public library service did not happen overnight but endured a lengthy period of gestation, reflecting the changes taking place in the town’s municipal governance during the 1850s. It therefore locates the new service within the context of the town’s municipal reform movement, driven by the thinking of nonconformist minister, George Dawson, illustrating how and why the early rate-funded library eventually became an integral part of the town’s wider cultural development. Part of Birmingham’s distinctiveness lay in the role played by Dawson and the history of the establishment of the public library service in the town was strongly interwoven with his ideas for municipal reform. The thesis examines the interrelationships between people and policy during the formation of this new service, giving attention not only to the civic and intellectual elite responsible for policy decisions but also to those charged with administering the service, notably its first Chief Librarian, John Davies Mullins. By providing the first in-depth assessment of Mullins’ career and his work to improve the status of professional librarians, this study presents material that has been previously neglected in the histories of Victorian Birmingham.