Heritage Week focus-Carnegie building turns 100 |17 April 2010
To mark Heritage Week from April 15 to 21 Tony Mathiot has written the following feature which traces the origins of the Carnegie building.
A hundred years ago, it was a magnificent edifice that enhanced the colonial character of Victoria. Now, it’s a rather small, nondescript cream-coloured and brownish-pink building situated between Liberty House and the Development Bank of Seychelles on Independence Avenue. But the particularity of the Carnegie Building is such that one cannot presume or even attempt to evaluate or assess the noble contributions it has made to our society for the first 68 years of its existence, during the 20th century.
This was once the Carnegie Library, the wellspring of knowledge for at least three generations of Seychellois citizens. It was in there, that they discovered the thrill of reading and experienced the fascination of literature.
Donation to set up library
News that the illustrious Scottish born American Philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) had donated the sum of £1,750 (then R26,250) for the creation of a public library in Seychelles, first appeared as an ordinance – number 14 – of September 24, 1908 which was enacted “to provide for the establishment and management of the Carnegie Library”.
However, a dispatch minute paper dated March 8 1907 from “the right honorable Secretary of state for the colonies” had approved the sum of R1,500 annually for the maintenance of a free public library. This was in answer to a demand by governor Davidson who prior to requesting a grant from the great philanthropist, had to satisfy The Carnegie Formula, which required that any country or town that wanted to be a beneficiary of his financial benevolence must demonstrate the need for a public library, provide the building site and funds for the library’s operation, and provide free service to all. The request was granted on August 6, 1907.
Work on the building began in January 1909. The builder was William Marshall Vaudin and the architect was Henry A. Pare. Forty-three old Vaudin was then Superintendent of Public Works, with an annual salary of R720. The many years that he spent in the civil service of Seychelles were marked by no few noble achievements. Born in Seychelles, where his father, Adolphe Vaudin was the civil chaplain, he attended the Royal College of Mauritius and entered Government Service there in 1888; he worked as the Assistant Government surveyor until 1900 when he came to settle in Seychelles where he continued his career in the Survey department. He was appointed Head of Public works department in 1901, a post which entailed the responsibility of overseeing the construction of various government infrastructures in Victoria including the erection of the Clock tower in 1903 and the construction of the stately Government House – now State House – in 1910. The qualities of his erudition and scholarship entitled him to be appointed on the list of assessors – officials who made assessments for taxation, the Agricultural Board, the prison board of visiting justices and the post of chairman of the Central District Council Board.
In 1912 he was made a member of the executive council and of legislative council. William Vaudin died in 1919, the same year as did Andrew Carnegie.
Not much is known about Henry A. Pare. Besides being the acting consul for Italy he was also the owner of a light rage company and an ice factory.
The year 1910 was another year in governor Davidson’s tenure which was marked by the pursuance of various social goals he had on his colonial agenda.
The budget for the colony for that year was R528,227.62 – slightly above the revenue of the previous year, which was R511,316.39. Sundry establishments or amenities were being constructed; the extension of Victoria market, the building of the Glacis police station, the building of a new lighthouse on Denis Island, the building of a coconut oil factory at Long Island and of course, work on the new Government House which started in November – and by the end of December had already cost R1,395.78.
Building erected
So, in the small township of Victoria where various wood and corrugated iron buildings with all kinds of different and distinctive designs and features already existed to form a somewhat quaint architectural landscape, the Carnegie building sprouted as the one-storey 
Vaudin had in mind a building of decent size and appearance that would flaunt its simplicity less than its noble functions. Indeed, most of the Carnegie Library buildings that already existed elsewhere in the US, New Zealand and in the Caribbean were constructed in various architectural styles including Italian Renaissance, Spanish colonial, Baroque or Classical Revival, Vaudin opted for a vernacular style that would complement its colonial surroundings.
He included a wide verandah on the first floor that consisted of a wooden balcony with a balustrade of timber posts supported from the ground floor by a row of white masonry pillars. A simple and splendid building.
However, even though he was involved in one of the most interesting construction projects that formed an important part of the town development at that time, in early August, Vaudin took three months vacation leave of absence. He was replaced by L. Le Vieux, who was the Inspector of Police.
In November, the Seychelles Government Gazette published The Carnegie Library Regulations, in anticipation of the imminent opening of the establishment. This was a list of twenty-two principles and rules designed to effectively manage and control the first public library in Seychelles since Charles Augustus Mylius (1795-1873) opened the L’institution Litteraire on May 24, 1839 on the occasion of the 20th birthday of Queen Victoria (1819-1901).
Davidson duly appointed the first board of directors. It comprised the clerk to the government W.L.Rind as chairman, an unofficial member of the Legislative Council Hans Paul Thomasset (1862-1949) , V.H Lloyd (1856-1924), chief medical officer Dr. James B. Addison, curator of the Botanical Gardens Rivaltz Dupont (1870-1938) and a notary public François Prosper Loustau-Lalanne (1869-1924).
By the time the building was completed in early December, the cost had arrived at R18,000. A further R3,000 was spent in furnishings and another R6,000 to buy books. Clearly, the establishment of the Carnegie Library had cost slightly more than the R26,250 grant.
Library opened
Among the first books to be placed in the Library were the unpublished documents relating to the History of Seychelles Anterior to 1810 by Albert Auguste Fauvel. This tome is familiar to all those who have indulged in the history of Seychelles. It is an indispensable work of reference. Fauvel was a French mariner who had an inveterate penchant for travelling to remote lands and historical research. He was born in 1851. In 1872 he travelled to China where he spent over a decade, studying various aspects of Chinese history and culture, becoming eventually a very well-respected sinologist. When he left China, he was appointed as inspector of the messageries Maritimes, a post which required him to travel to Argentina, Brazil, Madagascar, Reunion and Seychelles, which fascinated him so much that he visited a few times.
In order to compile his famous work, he sedulously gathered historical information from various archives of France. It was in March 1909, soon after work on the library had begun, that governor Davidson personally undertook the task of publishing The Fauvel, to make it accessible to the wide public. He did it at his own expense and even wrote an introductory chapter. The book went on sale on June 26 the same year at the governor’s office. It sold for R5 a copy. 1909 was also the year that Fauvel died.
Thomasset donated 50 volumes of scientific and agricultural literature. Vaudin’s personal contribution was bound volumes of classical literature, including Hugo, Emile Zola and Alexandre Dumas.
The Carnegie Library opened every week day from 9am to 11am and from 3pm to 5.30pm except on Saturdays when it opened from 900am to 11.00am and from 1.00pm to 4.00pm. On Sundays, it opened from 10.30am to 11.30am. There was a reading-room, a portion of which was strictly reserved for the use of ladies. Three volumes were lent to a person who had to pay a charge of 5 cents per volume plus a deposit of R5. Books could be kept for a period of 21 days after which a fine of 5 cents a day per volume was imposed. Students and apprentices were allowed to borrow books free of charge on bringing a written recommendation from their masters. The first public library of Seychelles must have operated on conditions of such extreme severity that truly only bibliophiles must have been disposed to cope with! Persons who were not in receipt of a salary of at least R750 a year or owners of immoveable property of the value of R2,000, or the husbands, wives or children of such persons were required to have their applications to borrow books from the library countersigned by a member of the board or head of a government department. A R30 refund was charged for any book that was lost or damaged. And a penalty of R100 – which was obscenely exorbitant, considering that the market keeper then was earning was R360 annually– was imposed on people who stole books.
The establishment of the Carnegie Public Library caused a considerable number of literate inhabitants of Mahé to develop a culture of reading. Occasionally, during the year, a wide variety of magazines and periodicals were sold by auction: The Rudder, Boy’s own paper, The Sphere, The Crown Colonist, Vu, La Semaine de Suzette, Les Echos, World Review, Pearson’s Magazine, The Wide World and others.
The part of the building upstairs was used as a public hall for social gathering which was rented for a fee. The curator earned R50 a month.
Andrew Carnegie
Now, who was Andrew Carnegie? The memory of that great Scottish-born American industrialist does make one become lavish of encomiastic praise for him, to the extent of even claiming that adjectives like noble and magnanimous must have been invented for him.
Andrew Carnegie was born in 1835 of poor parents in Dunfermline, Scotland. At 13, he emigrated to Pennsylvania in the United States, where he worked in a cotton factory. Soon after, he became telegraph messenger boy, earning $4 a week. His keenness for learning and willingness for hard work eventually brought him opportunities. He was soon promoted to Superintendent of the Pittsburg Division in the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Being a young man of great perspicacity and resoluteness of character, Carnegie knew when and how to exploit what particular aspects of the industrial revolution that had began to explode in the US. He acquainted himself with the managerial innovations of the railroad industry and invested in shares and even bought land containing oil in the West of Pennsylvania. These investments became hugely profitable and they laid the foundations of his fortune. In 1888, he had his own company called The Carnegie Steel Company which was the largest manufacturer of pig iron and steel rails in the world, producing approximately 2,000 tons of pig metal per day for the US railroad industry. In 1901, Carnegie sold his business to J.P Morgan (1837-1913) an American financier, and steel and railroad magnate who then created US Steel.
It redounded to Carnegie’s repute and posthumous honour that he spent more than half of his vast fortune – which according to the 2010 figures would amount to almost $5 billion – in philanthropic projects that improved the social welfare of many countries in the Third World – in particular, libraries, because he had a propensity to promote knowledge and literature.
When he died in 1919 of bronchial pneumonia, he had funded some 3,000 libraries in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies and South Africa. The first of Carnegie’s public libraries opened in his hometown, Dunfremline, Scotland, in 1883.
By the way, Mauritius received its Carnegie grant in 1914, for a Public Library in Curepipe.
Former patrons of the Carnegie Library – the younger ones of whom must be in their late 40’s – will recall that more than a few books in the library were marked with the Ranfurly Library Service stamp.
From the early 60s to the late 70’s, the names Carnegie and Ranfurly were adjuncts in the library world of various developing countries, including Seychelles. During the first three decades of its operation, most of the books in our Carnegie Library were hard cover volumes of popular English literature of the day: Edith Sittwell, Rudyard Kipling, E.M Forster, A.J Cronin, Ivy Crompton Burnett and Elizabeth Bowen. There must have been a few penguin paperbacks of Arthur Conan Doyle and D.H. Lawrence. Pulp fiction did not exist then!
It was thanks to a vivacious and enterprising young English woman, Hermione Ranfurly nee Llewellyn (1913-2001) that our grandparents were able to enjoy those second-hand bestsellers.
In 1937, when she was 25, Hermione went to Australia where she was employed as secretary to the governor of New South Wales. In Canberra, she met Daniel Knox, the 6th Earl of Ranfurly. He courted her and they married in 1939. In 1953, when her husband was appointed governor of the Bahamas, Lady Ranfurly was so appalled at the lack of books in the libraries and schools that she appealed to her friends in the UK to send their unwanted volumes. In 1957, when the Ranfurlys returned to the United Kingdom, she extended the Ranfurly Library Service projects to other developing countries including Mauritius and Seychelles which were short on books. Over the next 20 years, 25 million books were provided to schools, universities and libraries in the developing World. In 1994, the Ranfurly Library Service was re-named Book Aid International.
In 1964, the library was moved upstairs to make place on the ground floor for a national museum which was the ideal place for the Pierre de Possession that up to then had been kept in the grounds of the Government House.
In 1978, the library moved into the old secretariat that Davidson’s predecessor, Ernest Bickham Sweet-Escott (1857-1941) had built in 1903 at a cost R27,516.41. With its upper floor of Filao timber and sturdy doors and windows of teak, and a surrounding verandah with wrought-iron balustrade, the old building accommodated Carnegie’s precious contents well.
In 1982, precisely on June 23, Act 12 published in the Official Gazette, finally put an end to the 74-year-old Carnegie Library, and the public library became the National Library.
On June 30, 1994, the National Natural History Museum was inaugurated in the Carnegie Building. Four years earlier, the new and imposing, glass and concrete National Library opened at Fiennes Esplanade. As with all modern buildings, as with the Carnegie Building a 100 years ago, this magnificent edifice justifies the public needs for the acquisition of knowledge … by reading books.