200 Years of The Lit & Phil in Newcastle
Celebrate the Lit & Phil’s bicentennial with us
The Lit & Phil library – a true gem of the city often described as “Newcastle’s hidden library” – celebrates its 200th birthday this year.
Established by the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1825, the library now boasts more than 200,000 books making it the largest independent library outside London.
The Lit & Phil has a whole host of special bicentennial events going on to mark its 200th year – from talks, tours and lectures to library takeovers for kids – and to help them celebrate, we thought we’d take a look back through its colourful history and most memorable moments over the years.
1825
- The Lit & Phil library officially opens its doors in a grand neoclassical building designed by Northumberland-born architect John Green on the corner of Westgate Road and Neville Street with somewhere in the vicinity of 8,000 volumes
1858
- Engineer and industrialist Lord William Armstrong (he of Cragside fame) donates 1,284 works to the Lit & Phil at the behest of his late father William Armstong Sr, a longtime member of the Literary and Philosophical Society
1860
- Lord William Armstrong becomes President of the Lit & Phil, remaining so for the next forty years until his death in 1900
1879
- The Lit & Phil’s lecture theatre becomes the first public room to be illuminated by electrical light during a demonstration of Sunderland-born inventor Joseph Swan’s incandescent lightbulb
1883
- The Lit & Phil welcomes Irish author, poet and playwright Oscar Wilde to host his lecture ‘The House Beautiful’, a talk on the importance of craftsmanship in the home
1916
- Irish-born, Newcastle-based mechanical engineer and inventor Charles Algernon Parsons – who built Turbinia, the world’s first steam turbine powered ship – is appointed President of the Lit & Phil, staying in the post until his passing in 1931
1961
- The Lit & Phil sells a series of 9th century Assyrian reliefs previously bequeathed by archaeologist William Kennett Lofus to fund the conversion of its lecture theatre into four rooms, with the reliefs eventually finding a new home at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
1937
- One of the Lit & Phil’s five casts of the Elgin Marbles – once described by the Durham Chronicle in 1827 as “obscene” and “fit only for a common brothel” – mysteriously disappears before returning in the late 1940s. Perhaps one of its many resident ghosts playing a decade-long prank?
2011
- Actor, comedian and presenter Alexander Armstrong – a distant relative of Lord William Armstrong and his father – becomes the Lit & Phil’s latest President
- Award-winning crime writer Ann Cleeves launches the latest book in her Vera Stanhope series – Silent Voices – at the Lit & Phil. The library would later feature in her sixth Vera book Harbour Street and the building itself has since been featured in several episodes of the TV adaptation of Cleeves’ Vera series starring Brenda Blethyn
2012
- Membership of the Lit & Phil library reaches its peak at 2,000 – the highest number since 1952
2024
- The Lit & Phil receives a £1 million donation from local charity The Barbour Foundation to go towards a library revamp
Newcastle wouldn’t be Newcastle without the Lit & Phil and its rich and colourful history is weaved into the city’s fabric. So, let’s all celebrate its bicentennial with a big “Happy 200th Birthday, Lit & Phil”!
The Lit & Phil is located at 23 Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1SE. For more information visit: litandphil.org.uk.
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