90 years of lending - big birthday for Birkenhead Library
Birkenhead Central Library celebrated its 90th birthday yesterday (Thursday 18th July 2024) with a special event for invited guests.
A rock choir and a Swing-era band entertained guests as the building celebrated its birthday, which just happened to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the opening of Queensway, the first Mersey Tunnel.
In actual fact, it wasn’t really a coincidence at all… the construction of the ‘new’ Birkenhead Central Library and the first Mersey Tunnel were intrinsically linked.
Not only were they opened on the same day by His Majesty King George V – July 18th 1934 – but the funding for the library was provided by the Mersey Joint Tunnel Committee by way of compensation for the loss of the Andrew Carnegie-funded Birkenhead Library, which opened in 1909 situated on Market Place South, that had to be demolished to make way for the Queensway Tunnel entrance.
