In article <v03007803b0342e7eab5b@[36.89.0.140]>, Bernard Barryte
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>
>A colleague recently explained that the growth of public libraries in the
>UK paralleled and in fact was one result of the proliferation of carnation
>cultivation in coal mining towns.  In brief the story related to me was
>that these flowers flourished in such regions and as the miners needed
>increasingly diverse literature to support increasingly sophisticated
>cultivation, communal book gathering evolved into libraries.
>
>Perhaps this was told to me just because I'm so gullible.  However, if it
>is true can anyone suggest any sources to support the tale?
>
>Thanks in advance for the bibliographic references.

First I've heard of it ... that's not to say it isn't true!

My impression was that the drive to provide reading rooms and libraries
came from several sources, often combined, off the top of my head:
temperance (get them reading, stop them drinking)
Christianity (get them reading, get them praying)
trades unionism, and similar political movements (get them reading, get
them campaigning for their rights)
a feeling of the possibility of upwards-mobility through education (get
them reading, get them earning).
These impulses came from both middle-class and working-class
communities, and both from 'betters' and within the class.

A couple of suggestions:
Tylecote, M. _The Mechanics Institutes' of Lancashire and Yorkshire
before 1851_, 1957, Manchester University Press.
Publications such as the _Transactions of the Leicester Literary and
Philosophical Society_ should, in their first issues, give you some idea
of their founding purposes.

Libraries were founded not only in coal-mining communities, but also in
other mining communities, cotton and wool towns, ports, manufacturies,
market-towns and garrison-towns.  In villages (it seems to me
particularly in 'model' villages, and villages with strong independent
churches) reading rooms seem to be placed in village halls.

This is not to say that single-subject gardening societies (from
carnations to leeks) did not proliforate at the same time as the
libraries (and museums with which they were often closely involved).
Also at the same time, allotment-holding was growing (there's an
interesting subject for a thesis).  The time also saw an increased
'scientification' (or whatever the word should be) of gardening.
But rather seeing the societies as a cause, and the libraries as an
effect, I see them as having many of the same underlying causes: growing
urbanization, new social structures, increasing literacy, and so on.

Fascinating question ... thank you very much for some thinking material!
--
Pat Reynolds
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Keeper of Social History, Buckinghamshire County Museum
   "It might look a bit messy now, but just you come back in 500 years time"
   (T. Prattchet)