About the Portico

One of Manchester’s longest-running institutions, the Portico is a subscription library and newsroom whose historic collection of over 25,000 books and archives spans over 450 years.

Alongside our members’ services, everyone is welcome to enjoy our free exhibitions; take part in our events and workshops; dine in our cafe (Monday - Friday); discover our history; and immerse themselves in our beautiful Regency-period building.

Find out more about our history and our future below.

218 years old

Open to all

25,000+ books

Our Mission, Vision and Values

Our mission is to work with Manchester’s diverse communities and visitors to explore, share, and celebrate their stories and the city’s literary and global heritage.

Our vision is to be the most accessible, sustainable, and dynamic historic library, where past, present, and future are unlocked through creativity and collaboration.

Our values are to be:

● Welcoming to all: reflecting our city

● Creative: promoting curiosity

● Equitable: reading the past to improve the present

● Collaborative: community making

Historic visitor book — Our History

The Portico Library was established by 400 founding subscribers in 1806, during Manchester’s emergence as ‘the first modern city’. Early readers and associates included word-famous authors, future Prime Ministers, leading scientists, and educators. Built with wealth derived from the Industrial Revolution, British empire-building, and colonial expansion, the Library amassed a collection that reflects the innovations, but also the exclusions and inequities of its time.
The Library’s early members—all men until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870—included people of various political positions, from Radical and Liberal abolitionists and anti-poverty campaigners to exploitative factory owners and textile traders. Many members were non-conformists and several wrote influential books, such as our first Secretary Peter Mark Roget, who wrote the first English thesaurus, and founder of atomic theory, John Dalton. Celebrated Manchester author Elizabeth Gaskell used the Library while her husband William acted as its longest-serving Chair.

Fun events at the Portico today — Today

The Portico Library became a registered charity in 2017 and now plays a central role in Manchester’s cultural life and literary heritage. Working with our region’s diverse communities, we explore and confront the city’s complex histories through eclectic and imaginative events, exhibitions, and learning programmes. The prestigious Portico Prize promotes Northern writing and publishing, while the Portico Sadie Massey Awards nurture literacy and learning among young people.
At the Portico, we believe that everyone should be treated equitably, inclusive of gender identity, disability, ethnic origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation, marital or transgender status, pregnancy and maternity, age or nationality. We want to create a welcoming and inclusive library that represents our city’s communities and is accessible to all. To read the Portico’s Equity and Representation Statement please click here.
The Portico continues to support its thriving and growing membership and welcomes the public and researchers for free, five days a week. Plan your visit **here**.

Father and son looking at the collection — Our Future

With support from the **National Lottery Heritage Fund and others** the Portico Library has begun an ambitious development process to open up and share its extraordinary heritage and collection with all of the city’s residents and visitors.
We hope to reunite all floors of our original Grade II* Listed Building, creating a revitalised, fully accessible venue for literature, learning, and history in the heart of the city.
Find out how to be part of this future **here**.

We need your support to continue our important work sharing our collection and history, and nurturing literacy and learning with Manchester’s communities.

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The Portico Library’s Equity and Representation Statement

August 2024

At The Portico Library, we believe that everyone should be treated equitably, inclusive of age, disability, ethnic origin, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, nationality, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

We want to create a welcoming and inclusive Library that represents our city’s communities and is accessible to all.

Equity and representation are central to The Portico Library’s ambitious development strategy. The Portico has already made some important strides forward in this area. This includes the election of female Chair and Secretary at Board level, new recruitment and equal opportunities policies, the creation of a new Equity and Representation Action Group, establishing partnerships with diverse individuals, groups and institutions, and organising exhibitions and events which platform and promote disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, people of colour, and people who are at risk of exclusion from community life.

However, we recognise that there is still more to do. The Library was established in 1806 at the height of British empire-building and was founded on the prosperity of the industrial revolution and the colonial period. The Library and its collections therefore reflect the innovations of this time, but also its history of exploitation and inequity.

Inspired by the renewed and ongoing fight for social justice, The Portico welcomes the opportunity, and responsibility, to build and shape a library and wider cultural sector that represents and serves its communities in Manchester and beyond. And we invite you to join us in this.

Who We Are

The Portico is run by a friendly and passionate team. Find out more about us.

Interested in volunteering with us? Look at our opportunities

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Dynamic Collections:

People, Purpose and Place in Historic Books

We are pleased to announce that the Portico Library, Manchester, has been awarded £96,173 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for its innovative People, Purpose, and Place in Historic Books project. Made possible by National Lottery players, the project will develop a new people-centred collections and cataloguing strategy that will expand our searchable records, making books easier to find through inclusive terminology and historical context.

This grant will enable the Portico to establish new cataloguing procedures that are more sensitive to the complexities around gender, race, and class in the Library’s collection, making it easier for everyone to use, locate, and discover our historic books. We will target two areas within our 25,000-book collection to pilot this new people-centred cataloguing process underpinned by a framework of historical empathy. The first are books detailing travel to and information about East Asia, concentrating on China, and the second are books on folklore and myths in the Yorkshire / Lancashire border near Manchester. We are working with a group of critical friends with expertise and lived experience relevant to these collections as well as with our partners the Wai Yin Society in Manchester and the Centre of Folklore, Myth and Magic in Todmorden.

The books of journeys to China often detail journeys or voyages across other countries in the region and the names used to describe the countries and people living there vary (For example, Peking instead of Beijing) and do not reflect modern day terminology. This makes it hard to search and access these items. We want to capture the historic data while making sure the terminology is up-to-date as well as addressing the racist and orientalist attitudes reflected by British travellers in the book descriptions. To do this, we are working with local communities in China Town to make our collection books more accessible and reflect the region’s rich cultural and intellectual history. This is particularly important as the Portico Library is on the edge of China Town in Manchester.

The books about folklore, myth and magic in the northwest and Lancashire / Yorkshire regions also share issues around place names and boarder changes. The Portico will make these books more accessible to people interested in folklore and local customs who live in the areas today through events, storytelling, and work with school age children.

Illustration of Rambutan Fruit from the Portico Library’s copy of *A Voyage to Cochinchina in the years 1792 and 1793* by John Barrow

Keep up to date with this project by following our progress on social media, through #dynamicbooks, and on our website.