The London Mechanics' Institution in Southampton Buildings. This sketch shows the Institution at 29, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, its home from 1825-1885. "Its library contains 4000 volumes," wrote a contemporary. "There are reading-rooms, class-rooms, a capacious 'theatre' or lecture-room, in which for thirty-five years the lectures have been given weekly, and the usual appurtenances of a literary institute" (qtd in Jackson 161-2). Scanned image and text by Jacqueline Banerjee and reproduced with the permission of Birkbeck College, London.
Source
Jackson, Lee, ed. Excerpt from Cruchley's London in 1865: A Handbook for Strangers, 1865 in A Dictionary of Victorian London: An A-Z of the Great Metropolis. London: Anthem, 2006.
Last modified 11 February 2007