Geograph - photograph every grid square

Grays Inn Law Library

The building to the right is The Treasury Building and in front is the Holker Library (Grays Inn Law Library). The first purpose built library for Grays Inn was opened in 1929. A career soldier recently demobbed from the Royal Artillery as an NCO, William Holden was employed as a uniformed porter in the newly opened building. Over the next eleven years William Holden spent much of his new career collecting and re-shelving books. To save constant tedious referral to the catalogue he essentially learned the location of the books by heart.

With the outbreak of WW2 William Holden was commissioned as a Captain in the Home Guard, he was instrumental in setting up a communications system that would have organised the feeding of London in the event of a Nazi invasion. One fateful night in 1941 the Luftwaffe bombed Grays Inn, the library, the catalogue and all the books save a few historical tomes that had been evacuated to a place of safety were destroyed. In the words of his obituary in the Grays Inn magazine Graya “nothing remained of the Library but Holden” within a few weeks he had established a functioning library in one of the surviving classrooms. He dedicated the rest of his life to rebuilding the Library and its stock. He was promoted to Librarian in 1947.The current building in the photograph was opened in 1958.
Capt William Holden MBE died in 1961 aged 70 years.

Many thanks to the Under Treasurer of Grays Inn Link for permission to publish the photo (taken on Private land) and to the current librarian for a fascinating tour of the library. It seems Great Uncle Bill is still a bit of a legend in Grays Inn!