3-003-912 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Opening of the Middle Temple Library by the Prince of Wales: His Royal Highness leaving the new library after the ceremony, 1861. The future King Edward VII visits legal chambers in the City of London. The Library was previously located in chambers to the left of the original Hall entrance. In the 19th century it was moved into purpose-built rooms. These became the Parliament Chamber when a new purpose-built library was opened by the then Prince of Wales in 1861. The new library building, although fashionable, was not received with universal acclaim. One 'Templar', writing anonymously to the editor of The Morning Post on 22 November 1869 with an extensive list of complaints about the Inn, objected that 'The hideous structure known as the Middle Temple Library will, unless it be as unstable as it is unsightly, furnish for many years to come a monument of the extremely bad taste with which the governing body of the Inn frittered away a large portion of its funds...[it] testifies how something like £40,000 was got rid of'. The building was damaged beyond repair during World War II and had to be demolished. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.