2-970-269 - /Heritage Images

The Boston Athenaeum, 1856. '...a suite of rooms in the new Corn Exchange has been appropriated to the institution...The Rev. G. B. Blenkin...hoped the Boston Athenaeum would ever be what it ought to be, the handmaid of religion, and that its members would become not only more cultivated in intellect, but would under God's good grace become better citizens, better Christians, and better men'. The Mechanics' Institute at Boston in Lincolnshire was founded in 1837, but it soon began to decline from lack of support. It was eventually transformed into the Boston Athenaeum, an institution with a well-equipped library and news room, and where courses of lectures were held. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.