Pre-1910
Weston’s first library was well underway by January 1847 when it was briefly mentioned in the British American Cultivator: "We are delighted to learn that the Village of Weston Library is producing happy results in that flourishing neighbourhood, and hope that similar institutions will be organized in every village in the Province, before the lapse of the present winter."
On February 8, 1858, the Weston Mechanics’ Institute was established to provide continuing education and a library for workers. The library was located in the Weston Plank Road home of James Cruickshank, Senior (1830-1916), a wagon and carriage maker, who served as Weston’s first librarian.
Weston Mechanics’ Institute disappeared from the public record in the 1860s and did not resurface until the early 1880s when it was included in plans that architect and builder William Tyrrell completed on August 1, 1883 for a “Public Hall and Mechanics’ Institute to be erected in Weston by the Council Thereof” at the southwest corner of today’s Weston Road and Little Avenue. (Tyrrell was also the first reeve of Weston, which was incorporated as a village in 1881).
In 1884, the Institute opened in a 28- by 15-foot room at the back of the ground floor of Weston Town Hall; it was allocated a second, adjacent room in 1886. A decade later, the Catalogue of books in the library of the Weston Mechanics’ Institute listed 1,744 titles (a huge increase from the library’s collection of 161 books in 1885), and declared that the Library was “Open every Tuesday and Saturday evening from 7 to 9” and the Reading Room “every evening from 7 to 10”.
In 1895, provincial legislation changed Weston Mechanics’ Institute to Weston Public Library. It was a “not free” public library, supported by members’ fees and government grants, but not by the taxes of all local ratepayers. Another Public Library Act in 1909 changed the designation to Weston Public Library Association, but its “not free” status remained.
