CRAFTSMAN AND CLYDESIDER Available to Purchase

At the close of his professional life Fred Hutchings had no regrets for the course his career had taken. This was not complacency but a quiet satisfaction that he had made the best available decisions open to him. He could not look back on the planning of a substantial new library. His career at its high point, as Chief Librarian of Leeds, the fifth largest provincial city in Britain, coincided with the lean decades for public building after the Second World War. Once, in the fifties, driving through a clearance area of old inner‐city houses, he asked “How can I press for expenditure on new branches when houses have to be built?” For me, the depth of feeling covered by this remark summarised many of the attitudes and principles of an outstanding Chief.