Oldest public library of English-speaking world takes visitors to time travel into past

Chetham’s Library in the UK, the oldest public library in native English countries, holds some of the world’s historical manuscripts and archives, including a golden-embroidered Quran manuscript dating back to 1610.

The library was founded in 1653 in the world’s first industrial city Manchester under the will of Humphrey Chetham, a prosperous Manchester textile merchant, banker, and landowner.

Chetham’s Library began acquiring books in August 1655 and has since been adding to its collections.

The library stands in a sandstone building dating from 1421, which was built to accommodate the priests of Manchester’s Collegiate Church.

The entire collection at Chetham’s Library, also an accredited museum, has been designated as one of global and domestic importance. The library attracts visitors from all over the world.

The library holds over 40 medieval manuscripts, including the 13th-century Flores Historiarum of Matthew Paris – a chronicle of world and English history, a 15th-century Aulus Gellius, bound for Matthias Corvinus, a king of Hungary, and an important compendium of Middle English poetry.

There are over 120,000 printed items, of which over half were published before 1850.

- Quran manuscript dating back to 1610

The library also hosts many private collections, including a medium-sized gold embroidered manuscript of the Quran, Islam’s holy book, dating back to 1610.

Sian-Louise Mason, the visitor services coordinator of the library, allowed Anadolu to film the Quran, which was kept in private collections.

The date 1747 was visible in Latin on the edge of the Quran, to which Mason said it was written down by someone who owned it that year.

“Can you see how golden it is? And normally gold paint with age will turn black or red. The fact that this is still gold is amazing. This is all beautifully hand drawn and handwritten,” she said.

The library was also known as a working place for communist philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in 1845. Marx, who lived in London, frequently visited Manchester, where Engels lived.

In the summer of 1845, Marx and Engels started to study together at the table in the nook of the “Reading Room.”

“Karl Marx visited his good friend Friedrich Engels, and they discussed here a lot of books they read about the history. Not just the history, but also what they were interested in,” said John Sharman, a volunteer at Chetham’s Library.

According to the library, Engels wrote to Marx many years later, in 1870, and said: “During the last few days, I have again spent a good deal of time sitting at the four-sided desk in the alcove where we sat together twenty-four years ago. I am very fond of the place. The stained glass window ensures that the weather is always fine there. Old Jones, the Librarian, is still alive but is very old and no longer active. I have not seen him on this occasion.”