Rylands Reminiscences: Insights into life at the John Rylands Library in the 1950s and ’60s

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Brenda Scragg née Knowles, who has the distinction of being the oldest living former member of staff of the John Rylands Library. Brenda started work seventy years ago, in August 1956, and retired forty years later. She is therefore uniquely qualified to talk about life at the Rylands in the 1950s and 1960s. Brenda generously shared her memories of this period, prior to the merger with the University of Manchester Library in 1972.

Brenda, you joined the Library straight from school at the age of 18 in 1956. What interested you in a job at the Rylands?

BJS: I had always been interested in book history and all aspects of the arts. On seeking my first job, I wrote to the University Library and was interviewed by Moses Tyson, the Librarian at the time. I found it very off-putting because he had the most dreadful squint; you couldn’t tell where he was looking. But there was no vacancy at that time, so that was that. Then I was a pupil at Withington Girls School. Edward Robertson was a governor of the school, and he was also Librarian of the Rylands. And he inquired if anybody wanted to work at the Rylands. So, I was sent for an interview. At that time, I’m not sure that I’d even heard of the Rylands and had certainly never been inside. I duly presented myself for interview with the Librarian and, after a brief discussion, he said, ‘When can you start?’ An absolute dream interview!

JRH: Of course, in those days, it wasn’t unusual for people to come directly from school to work at the Library. For example, David Riley [later Keeper of Printed Books] came straight from Manchester Grammar School, and my research on former staff members has shown that quite a number were recruited from Manchester Grammar School and Manchester High School for Girls.

You were employed initially as a library assistant. What did that involve?

BJS: I was one of about four library assistants working on the counter, which served the requests of the readers, mainly retrieving the books that they requested and ultimately returning them back to the shelves. We also dealt with recording the receipt of periodicals, which you found out at the University Library [JRH worked in the Periodicals Office there in 1984]; we had a similar system.

We were also given simple instructions in cataloguing new items, and our work was checked by senior staff. All catalogue entries were handwritten, and you had to write carefully. Fortunately, I was one of the better hand writers, mainly, I think, because, like you, I’m left-handed. We had dipping pens, and I was often sent back to redo the work that we’d done, because I’d splashed ink all over, you know, jabbing the pen in. We wrote them out in rough and then they [the senior staff] checked them and we did it in our best handwriting. And then we had to file them in the slip catalogue, which in some cases was quite difficult because the scheme of cataloguing was based on the British Museum scheme, which perhaps served the Museum at the time it was instituted, but it was a bit of a minefield for a lot of people. When you’ve got things like London administrative areas, and so on and so on.

As a relatively junior member of staff, presumably there were parts of the collections that you couldn’t access or work on without approval from a senior member of staff.

BJS: Oh no, you couldn’t. But the only place I was restricted in going to retrieve material for readers was the manuscripts. I could go into the Early Printed Books Room, and I could go into the Bible Room. But the manuscript material was always retrieved by and put back again by the manuscripts staff.

You mentioned cataloguing, but what other processes were you involved with, because of course this was long before computers arrived at the Library and everything was done manually?

BJS: Periodicals were done on the counter. The accessions were mostly done by Audrey Barnes, and she had a separate room, and there was an accessions register, which I know is similar to the ones that the Main Library (on The University of Manchester campus) had, because in the course of later work, I’ve looked at the Main Library accessions registers for things and it was pretty similar. And, of course, new books were given a running R number.

Another of my duties, before a professional photographer was appointed [Edward Bathe, in 1961], was to produce requested photographs using the antique Watson & Sons mahogany plate camera. I hope it has been preserved. [See Elizabeth Gow and others, ‘“Fraught with Possibilities of World-Wide Benefit”: Towards a History of Photography at the John Rylands Library’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 101.2 (2025), 15–33. https://www.manchesterhive.com/view/journals/bjrl/101/2/article-p15.xml.]

What else? Oh, I think one of the things that always impinged on me was that the Library had no concern about health and safety. The lift was a hydraulic lift operated by a rope, and the hydraulic power came from a pumping station at the bottom of Bridge Street [now the People’s History Museum], which also serviced the Town Hall and other buildings. Can you imagine it? I mean, it’s antediluvian, isn’t it? With the hydraulic system, it wasn’t always easy to stop the lift level with the floors. And the trolleys were ancient wooden things, nothing like the ones at the Main Library. But of course, they were all flatbed because you had to put big books on. And there was never any question as to whether you were actually capable of picking up these books. I was quite capable, but perhaps others were not.

JRH: I remember David Riley once saying that he managed to tip a whole trolley load of books down the lift shaft in his first week at work.There were also issues around working at height, weren’t there? I mean, I remember some of the ladders were a bit rickety.

BJS: Yes. I was quite happy to climb up all the steps and reach the books at the top, quite happy. But I certainly pushed for ladders with a handle at the side, at one point. And some of them were very heavy. And the doors [of the glass-fronted bookcases] weren’t easy to open and close. I’m sure you must have found that.

But having said I thought that they had not much idea of health and safety, I didn’t think they had much more at the University when I moved there.

JRH: Yes, it was a different age, wasn’t it? And things that were taken for granted then seem impossibly risky now.

BJS: Something else, which has just come into my mind, We had regular meetings of the Governors. They met in a room downstairs, the Council Chamber. And we used to have to set out blotting paper, notepads, ink, and pen nibs. I don’t know whether they ever used any of them, but that was often my task.

JRH: Sounds Edwardian.

BJS: Absolutely Edwardian. I mean, a lot of the governors were actually Edwardians, weren’t they?

JRH: As a member of staff, were you ever invited to attend meetings, or was it behind closed doors, as it were?

BJS: Oh, it was behind closed doors. I don’t know what the committee discussed, but we used to have to put out in the adjacent room, the Book Committee Room, all the recent books that had been acquired since the previous meeting so that they could see what the Library was acquiring. That was quite a job. Of course, the basic architecture of the Library, the style, made some of the things difficult, particularly where you had to go from one lift to the other up the sloping floor. Pushing a trolley load of books up there was quite a task.

I believe you were also involved in the distribution of the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library.

BJS: Yes, the other great thing that we did was posting off the Bulletin. I was the subscription manager to the Bulletin at the time. They were sent all over the world. They were divided into two sections: there were exchanges, where we got something back from other institutions, and there were subscribers. And I used to do the invoices and that sort of thing. But when the Bulletins arrived from the printers, everything stopped in the Library and we put them in padded bags, and I also produced the labels that were stuck on the bags. And it was principally my job to organise that, and then get the Post Office to come and collect them. And I used to go around to the Post Office in Bridge Street, long since gone, to pay for it. And I remember one time I went in and they said to me, ‘They’re not going. You’ve got the addresses wrong.’ I said, ‘I haven’t got the addresses wrong at all.’ ‘Oh no, they haven’t been organised into one country and another country.’ I said, ‘That’s not our job, it’s your job.’ And I bought the stamps, and we had to stick the stamps on, but the best thing of everything – I think this is amusing – was we had to stamp ‘Printed Paper Reduced Rate’ on the bags. So, at the end of everything, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, get rid of the frustration!

Can you tell me about your subsequent career development? I understand that you became an Associate of the Library Association in 1967.

BJS: That’s right. Now, I did a part-time postal course for one of the exams. The exams are all very different now. In fact, it’s graduate now, of course, and was shortly after I got the accolade.

Oh, another thing that was purely of the time. If you think of the 1950s, people like Keith Farmery [subsequently Deputy University Librarian] and his generation were doing National Service. And when we were studying for the library exams, the lectures were held at UMIST [University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology]. In order for some strange reason to equate the fact that we were not doing National Service, we got at least two hours a week study time in the Library. But when National Service finished, that finished for us, but I started off like that.

JRH: That’s interesting. I didn’t know that at all.

BJS: And I had a gap where I sort of did half the exams and then did nothing more.

JRH: And can you remember when you were promoted to assistant librarian, presumably after 1967?

BJS: Oh yes, but the very fact that I had no degree was always against me, because I was never able to be promoted beyond the lowest grade of the librarians. The only person who actually did anything for me in that respect was Chris Hunt [University Librarian, 1991-2002], because he gave me two merit rises, which put me up to the bottom level of the next stage, sort of thing.

I imagine that the staff cohort in the 1950s and ’60s was small compared with today, or even with the 1980s when I started.

BJS: Oh yes, but we were all quite friendly with each other. But you know there were two common rooms. Do you remember two common rooms?

JRH: Well, that was before my time, but I knew that there was a senior common room and a (smaller) junior one next door.

BJS: Yes, well, the one that was the senior common room became the general common room eventually. And if you kept fairly quiet with an open ear, you found out lots of things. That’s what I did. But initially I occupied the junior common room until it was taken over for other purposes.

Was it quite formal in terms of staff relations and the hierarchy?

BJS: Oh, yes, you didn’t have casual conversations with the senior staff, really, not even after we were all having lunch together in the same room, you know, at lunchtime. This is where I learned quite a lot, where they were talking to themselves. All the senior staff were always addressed by their titles, never their first names. Right to the very end, Glenise Matheson [Keeper of Manuscripts] was always ‘Miss Matheson’ to me, and she was very keen on that.

JRH: I remember it was only quite late on when I became more senior that I would ever address Mr Riley as ‘David’. It was always ‘Mr Riley’. Not that he insisted on that; it just seemed the right thing to do, to address him as ‘Mr Riley’.

Can you tell us about the culture of the Library sixty or seventy years ago? Was it rather stuffy?

BJS: I suppose it was really. But somehow or other it suited me. Perhaps I was stuffy at the time.

JRH: Was there a strict dress code?

BJS: I was surprised when you mentioned that. There wasn’t really, but I think at the time most people thought they ought to be smartly dressed in that sort of a place. I think the only person who ever complained to anybody was me complaining to a female member of staff who persistently came in boots. I don’t mean walking boots; I mean fashion boots. I thought they were inappropriate and she took it to heart, and never came in them again.

JRH: It may be an anecdote or a false memory, but I thought that somebody once said that male staff were only allowed to wear corduroy trousers on a Saturday, not during the week, but perhaps I’ve invented that.

BJS: Well, I think that’s what took place, yes, it was more casual on a Saturday.

Did the staff ever let their hair down? Was there socializing outside of work?

BJS: I don’t know about the senior staff. I’ve no idea about that. The junior staff did. And the very fact that I’m still in touch with two from that time shows. There was a gap when I wasn’t in touch with them. And then when the Friends [the Friends of the John Rylands] was established, they came and we got together again and I see them quite regularly. In fact, I was hoping to contact one of them this morning to tell her that we were doing this, but I shall be telling her at some point.

We haven’t said much about the readers or visitors. It was generally a much quieter place then, particularly in terms of visitors.

BJS: Oh, yes. Lots of readers would ring up and ask us in advance what they wanted and we’d get it out for them.

JRH: And were they mainly from the University or was it a mix?

BJS: Oh, it was a mix. And of course, many of the readers were international even then, mainly from the United States.

When groups from local societies came round, we took them round the exhibition on the library floor. There were general exhibitions; I mean, mostly it was one on the Rylands and then one on the Spencer collection and the family. And there were copious notes. We just had to read them upside down. But I was quite interested in that, and it was quite useful experience. You got some strange comments from people.

The merger with the University of Manchester Library in 1972 was arguably the most important event in the history of the Rylands. There had been discussions going on for at least a year or two before the formal merger. Presumably you were aware that it was being discussed, but were you, as a member of staff, involved or consulted as part of that process?

BJS: Well, we were aware, but we weren’t consulted at all. Neither did we have any information about what might happen at the merger, whether we would lose our jobs or whether we’d be moved, or quite what would happen. There seemed to be quite some euphoria on the day of the merger. But I don’t know, I think that soon dissipated really. To be honest, although it’s the major thing, I don’t remember that much about it, even though I feel I’ve got a good memory.

JRH: My impression is that the merger took a long time to take effect in practical terms. It didn’t feel like a single library, I think, for a very long time.

BJS: Oh no, it didn’t.

JRH: And in any case, there was no alternative. The Rylands could not carry on as an independent institution. It just wasn’t financially sustainable, was it?

BJS: No, it wasn’t. We weren’t well paid. This is another gripe about the merger. When I started work in 1956, I got £3 15s a week. Always paid in cash, in a little envelope, and it went up to £4 when I joined the staff pension scheme, run by Legal & General. At the merger, we had to join the USS scheme [Universities Superannuation Scheme]. And although I paid in from 1957 to 1972, it bought me only three years in the University pension scheme, which I thought was so mean, because it wouldn’t have cost much.

JRH: I guess most Rylands staff weren’t in a union, so I just wonder who was representing the interests of Rylands staff in the negotiations, if anyone, for example arguing for equivalence of the pension schemes?

BJS: No, there were no unions and no-one was arguing the case for the staff. We were just told a fait accompli.

JRH: Brenda, you have said that you didn’t transfer to the Main Library until 1979, seven years after the merger. Did it have any direct impact on you or your particular role immediately after ’72?

BJS: Not really. Things carried on more or less as before. I spent a few years working at Rylands with no intention of going to the Main Library, and it was Michael Pegg [University Librarian, 1981–1991] who decided I ought to be moved out of Rylands, which I found quite traumatic at the time, because I thought that was my entire life there, I was really keen on that. And I challenged the way in which my transfer was done, which was very underhand. They [the Library leadership] all knew, and they hadn’t told me that I was being transferred.

JRH: Really? So, you weren’t happy to be effectively moved?

BJS: Not at all, not at all, and I challenged it and lost.

JRH: Oh dear. In retrospect though, how do you regard the move? Did it benefit you?

BJS: It widened my experience considerably, because perhaps up till then I had had a fairly cloistered life. Eventually, they moved temporarily other people from Rylands to the Main Library, but I think I was the only one that actually fitted in when I got to the Main Library. I think I’m quite easy to get on with, I don’t know.

JRH: Yes, and adaptable. I think, as I say, it took a long, long time for the merger to be successfully implemented. I remember even in the 1980s there was still a bit of a ‘them and us’ attitude and mutual suspicion on both sides. And I would argue that the merger only really happened when the Rylands closed for the ‘Unlocking the Rylands’ project and we all moved up to the Main Library in 2003–4, which was over 30 years after the formal merger.

We’ve obviously covered a lot of ground and I think we should wrap up our conversation now. How do you look back on your 40-year career at the Rylands and the University of Manchester Library?

BJS: I enjoyed every moment of it, really.

JRH: Well, it’s been really interesting and enjoyable reminiscing like this, Brenda, and I’m most grateful to you.