Leigh Reading Room and Institute (Institute Cottage)
The Cottage now known as Institute Cottage was built between 1872 and 1880 (exact date not known, but it does not appear on the Drainage Map of 1872). It was situated alongside the Chapel, Schoolroom and Baptistry and designed by George Devey. It was part of the Chapel complex but was never occupied by the Minister, even though it was known as Church Cottage for a time. Instead, it became a reading room – a sort of club for villagers, which had a Committee and subscriptions.
When Samuel Morley first moved to Leigh, he was unhappy that so many labourers that he had brought down from London to Leigh had nothing to do with their spare time – except perhaps get drunk to which Samuel Morley objected. And so he set up a Christian reading room at Oak Cottage on the Green, for at least part of the 1870s. Evidence for this comes from two extracts from the newsletter for the non-conformist chapel congregation – The Leigh Gospel Watchman. Mr Maxted was the congregation’s minister and on 1 May 1880 (p. 3), the Watchman said that Mr Maxted referred to the work begun nine years since, when the reading room was commenced in the cottage on the Green, and hoped that before another winter one would be opened on more impartial grounds than the present, when many more might be induced to attend.” The extract clearly leaves a good number of loose ends. Three years later, a subsequent newsletter called “The Village Messenger” said (January 1883 page 3) “Preaching was then carried out in the Reading room under the Oak, which room had been opened by Mr S Morley for the use of the workmen employed in building Hall Place.”
The implication from this is that the Institute was built in about 1880/81 to provide better accommodation for the reading room and Oak Cottage turned back into a dwelling.
However, as support for the Chapel itself diminished after the death of Samuel Morley in 1886, by 1908 the main Chapel complex had become the Institute and Library and a tin chapel was built at the back of the complex as the place of worship. Thereafter, Institute Cottage itself became solely residential. I say solely because it appears from the censuses that that Reading Room/Institute also served as a home. We do not know whether it was built and occupied by 1881 and the census is not clear, but in 1891, the ‘Reading Room’ as it is called in the census, was occupied by John Burfield, a gardener and domestic servant, and his wife Beatrice, the ‘Caretaker’ of the Reading Room. In 1901, it is not clear, but possibly a John Hormorne, a gardener and his wife, Sarah and family (not given as Caretaker), but the next house along is Harry Faircloth, wheelwright in what is today’s Pump Cottage, which leads me to believe John was living at the Reading Room. In 1911 the ‘Institute’ is occupied by William Passingham, aged 67, and his daughter Louisa, aged 31, is described as Caretaker of Village Institute. So the house is now solely residential and Louisa is looking after the village complex next to it.
The following documents are from the period before the Reading Room moved into the main complex.
