Fonds

Montreal Library (1796-1844) & Mercantile Library Association of Montreal (1840?-1885)

The Montreal Library was founded at a meeting of subscribers/shareholders held at Dillon's Coffee House on March 7, 1796. Accessible to a relatively broad public and thus considered one of Quebec's first "public" libraries, it opened its doors in May of that year. Like most of the libraries established in the following decades, it was funded by membership fees. In 1844, its collection was acquired by the Mercantile Library Association of Montreal.

Founded in 1841 by English-speaking citizens, the Mercantile Library Association served a specific socio-professional group—the commercial class. Initially located at St. Ann's Market, it then moved to St. James Street in the business district. Among its members were prominent businessmen like Peter Redpath, John H.R. Molson, George Henry Frothingham and Hugh Fraser. The Association quickly became a hub of Montreal culture thanks to its various services and activities: a library, reading room and public lecture series. As early as 1843, the library already boasted 373 volumes and offered subscribers access to thirty or so newspapers and periodicals. The following year, it augmented its holdings by purchasing the collection of the Montreal Library. The Association also organized public lectures given by high profile American and Canadian speakers such as Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Robert Palmer Howard. From 1857 to 1858, it appears that the Hochelaga Debating Club was associated with the Mercantile Library Association of Montreal. During the 1870s, the library shared a building with the Montreal Gymnasium.

Starting in 1875, with the world in the midst of an economic depression, the Mercantile Library Association began talks with the Fraser Institute about transferring its books to the Institute's future library, on the condition that its members could maintain their privileges. This merger took effect in 1885, when the Institute was in a position to take over the library of the Mercantile Library Association of Montreal.

Sources :

Lamonde, Yvan. (1979). Les bibliothèques de collectivités à Montréal (17e - 19e siècles). Montreal: Ministère des Affaires culturelles/Bibliothèque nationale du Québec.

Séguin, François. (2016). D’obscurantisme et de lumières : la bibliothèque publique au Québec des origines au 21e siècle. Montreal: Hurtubise.

Fraser Institute and Fraser-Hickson Institute (1870-)

The Fraser-Hickson Institute, or the Fraser Institute, as it was originally known, owes its existence to two men: Hugh Fraser (1818-1870), who provided the financial resources needed to found the organization, and his close friend, John J. C. Abbott (1821-1893), who worked many long years to make it into a reality. A handsome who never married, Fraser was a wealthy, sociable Montreal merchant who belonged to a number of organizations like the St. James Club, the St. Andrew’s Society and the Mercantile Library Association. Thanks to his professional and social activities, he spent a lot of time around John H. R. Molson and Hugh Allan. As for Abbott, he was a pillar of the English-speaking business community, serving as mayor of Montreal from 1887 to 1888 and Prime Minister of Canada from 1891 to 1892.

In 1869, knowing that he was ill, Fraser asked Abbott to found a public institution in Montreal, free and open to all, composed of a library, museum and art gallery. When he died the following year, he bequeathed part of his estate to be used for its establishment. Incorporated in 1870, the Fraser Institute created its first board of directors, made up of Abbott, Frederick Torrance, Thomas Workman, Peter Redpath and Alexander Molson.

In 1882, Abbott finally found a building to house the Fraser Institute: Burnside Hall, the former home of Montreal High School, located at the corner of Dorchester Boulevard and University Street (now René-Lévesque Boulevard West and Robert-Bourassa Boulevard). In 1884, the board of directors drew up the Institute's first by-laws and hired its first employees. Following negotiations with the Mercantile Library Association of Montreal and the Institut canadien de Montréal,  the Fraser Institute finally opened its doors in 1885 with a collection of 10,000 books in French and another 16,500 books in English (a corpus that originated with the Montreal Library founded in 1796). This collection was augmented over the years by donations from prominent Montreal families like the Gills and the Molsons.

By the turn of the 20^th century, the library was receiving an average of 270 visitors a day. The Fraser Institute's popularity continued to grow over the next few decades, creating major space challenges. Three years after starting renovations in 1926, the Institute was able to open the first children's library in Montreal on the ground floor of Burnside Hall. In addition to offering a collection of books aimed at children, the space was equipped with furniture designed for little ones. The innovation was a success, and 280 children became members in the first week.

Appointed a member of the Institute's executive committee in 1916, Joseph William Andrew Hickson (1873-1956) joined the board of directors in 1932, serving as president from 1939 to 1945. Born in Montreal, he had earned a PhD in philosophy in Germany before becoming a professor of metaphysics and logic at McGill University. He was also a skilled mountain climber. Considered indispensable to the Institute's activities, Hickson remained a board member until his death, when he bequeathed over $1.5 million to the Institute.

The Fraser Institute had encountered serious financial difficulties in 1938 and stopped its lending activities, becoming a reference library. By 1956, the sale of its downtown location combined with Hickson’s substantial bequest enabled it to plan the construction of a new building and relaunch its lending service. A lot in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG) district was purchased in March 1957 and the building's design was entrusted to the architecture firm of Durnford, Bolton, Chadwick and Ellwood. The new library, now called the Fraser-Hickson Institute, was inaugurated on Kensington Avenue in 1959.

Though it had long survived with the help of private funding, in 2003 the Institute was faced with expensive property maintenance costs and had to close its doors for several months. However, a three-year recovery plan involving funding from the City of Montreal and the borough of NDG enabled it to reopen. In 2006, despite the support shown by local residents, the library's closure proved inevitable and the board of directors decided to sell the building to a private school. The same year, the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) entered into an agreement with the Fraser-Hickson Institute, whereby the latter donated and transferred ownership of the Institut canadien de Montréal collection to the BAnQ.  

In 2007, the Fraser-Hickson Institute moved, transporting over 100,000 books from its heritage collection to Westminster Avenue in Montreal West. The library continued its home delivery service for people with reduced mobility, began a partnership with the NDG YMCA in 2013, and focussed its activities on literacy programs. In 2016, the Fraser-Hickson Institute finally put 40,000 titles in its library collection up for sale so it could fully dedicate itself to its new mission: provide mobile library services to various community organizations with a focus on child education and early literacy. Now located at 3755 Botrel Street in NDG, the Institute remains active today and has continued its mission by supporting mini-libraries located in community organizations.

Source

Moodey, Edgar C. (1977). The Fraser-Hickson Library: An Informal History. London, England: Clive Bingley.