The Library World Volume 4 Issue 9

The interesting ceremony described in another part of our columns has once more recalled attention to one of the most remarkable characters in the annals of British librarianship. When Mr. Thomas Greenwood endeavoured, at the Plymouth meeting of the Library Association, to interest librarians in the man who had done so much for the craft, it must be confessed that his appeal, for various reasons, did not succeed in arousing so much enthusiasm as might have been expected. For one thing, a considerable proportion of the librarians who attended the Plymouth conference were young men who had not been able to obtain access to the works which Edwards left behind him as his most enduring monument. Again, the prominence given to Ewart as the sole parent of the municipal library movement, had completely overshadowed Edwards' share in the work, and only a few student‐librarians knew anything about the part which Edwards had played in securing effective library legislation. On the other hand, the publications of Mr. Greenwood, of the Library Association itself, and other modern and accessible literature, contain frequent allusions to Edwards and his works, from which information could be obtained, and it is only necessary to cite, in this connection the various writings of Messrs. Axon, Ogle, Garnett, Greenwood, Sutton, Brown, and others.