History of the Nettleship Library (IV): Hartland House

Mrs. Hartland’s Trust Fund was valued at £15,000, perhaps enough to build one module of a larger building but not enough to support all of the Society’s needs immediately. Gilbert Scott’s design was a clever one, a large building with all that the Society needed, but that could be made in three modules as funds became available.  The first, for which £15,000 would suffice, would contain just the library and lecture rooms.  Even then, the daunting sum of £5000 needed to be raised as an endowment to support running costs.  The Ship of these years reports the charming fundraising initiatives of students and alumnae as they ran dances, whist and tennis tournaments, and sold sweets to contribute what they could to the endowment fund.  The projected costs for the whole building were £65,000 – a further £50,000 on top of the Trust Fund.

Once the design had been approved, the first wing of Hartland House sprung up in a little over a year, being structurally finished in October 1937.  With the New Bodleian under construction from 1936 to 1940, the Society’s little library up the road must have felt like an interesting side project to Gilbert Scott, and perhaps even somewhere to try out designs or materials.  Mrs. Hartland remained involved in the minutiae of the design, helping to choose materials and even going so far as offering to tear down several barns on her own property so that their red-flecked stone might be employed.  Fortunately, this was deemed unnecessary though her contribution is evident elsewhere in the motto inscribed on the South side of the building: “Get knowledge, get riches, but with all thy getting, get understanding”.  She was also adamant that the building should have a sturdy stone roof and reportedly sold several of her personal treasures to contribute funds towards the extra cost.