Indications of Alfred Cotgreave

ALFRED COTGREAVE was born at Ecclestone in Cheshire in 1849 and acquired experience first at the Royal Exchange Library in Manchester and then with Birmingham public libraries. In 1877 he received his first appointment as librarian at Wednesbury on the northern fringe of Birmingham. Wednesbury at that time was a small town of 25,000, engaged principally in the production of iron and steel; the economic crash of 1872 had dealt its economy severe blows from which it was only now beginning to recover. On 21 March 1878 the library opened for its first day's business with a stock of 4,446 volumes classified by the Birmingham scheme and an Elliot indicator, the type which had been in use in nearby Wolverhampton since 1870.