The Portico Library

The library was established in 1802 after a meeting of Manchester businessmen resolved to create an "institute uniting the advantages of a newsroom and a library". A visit by four of the men to the Athenaeum in Liverpool encouraged the group to pursue a similar venture in Manchester. Funding was secured through 400 subscriptions, and the library opened in 1806.

The building, designed by Thomas Harrison and constructed by one of the founders, David Bellhouse, was mainly focused on 19th-century literature. Its first secretary, Peter Mark Roget, began work on his thesaurus there.

The ground floor is now occupied by The Bank, a public house named after the Bank of Athens, which leased the premises in 1921. The library occupies the first floor, accessed from Charlotte Street.

In November 2023, the library received a £453,000 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to transform the building and safeguard its collection. The project aims to reunite all three original floors for the first time in more than a century. Plans include converting the ground floor and basement into a "northern bookshop" with educational activities, dining and exhibition areas, and meeting spaces, while the upper floors would display the library's book collection, manuscript archive and architectural features.

The library was the first Greek Revival building in the city. Its interior was inspired by John Soane. The library has a rectangular plan and is constructed in sandstone ashlar on a corner site at 57 Mosley Street. It has two storeys, a basement and roof space. Its façade on Mosley Street has a three-bay pedimented loggia with four Ionic columns set slightly forward and steps between the columns. Under the loggia are two entrance doors and three square windows at first floor level.

The Charlotte Street façade has an entrance into the loggia with a square window above and another on the first floor. A five-bay colonnade of Ionic semi-columns has tall sash windows on the ground floor in each bay and square window above at first floor level. The attic storey is behind a pilastered parapet. Originally the reading room was on the ground floor and the library occupied the remainder of the ground floor and a mezzanine gallery. A glass-domed ceiling was inserted at gallery level in about 1920 to separate the new tenants from what remained of the library.

The Portico Library, in conjunction with its cultural partners and funders, hosts a series of literary prizes throughout the year to celebrate writers and poets from Northern England and beyond. The Portico Prize for Literature was established in 1985 and awarded biennially to a work of fiction or poetry and a work of non-fiction set wholly or mainly in the north of England. The library launched the Sadie Massey Award to celebrate the North West's young writers in 2015.

Recipients

The library's first chairman was John Ferriar and its secretary was Peter Mark Roget. Other notable members include John Dalton, Reverend William Gaskell, Sir Robert Peel and more recently Eric Cantona. Many of the membership have overlapped with that of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.