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Soldiers' Reading-Room, St. Mary's Barracks, Chatham, 1856. 'The annual return of between three and four thousand soldiers from India and the British Colonies - who, either from impaired health, or, having served their full term, were considered exempt from further active service - induced the authorities to decide upon St. Mary's Barracks as the fittest place for them...some, after a long and honourable career, to return to the place of their birth, carrying with them the rewards of merit; some, less fortunate, to whom loss of health in a tropical clime has proved a barrier to their promotion; and...the fearful number of the wounded, whose military career has been arrested by those many casualties war so necessarily entails...a Library is now being fitted up in one of the rooms of the Upper Gallery...About 800 volumes of historical and miscellaneous works have already been provided'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.