With the library closed, we are unable to browse reference material or borrow books about people or events commemorated this year. For the record, here are some examples:
Significant historical events include the Russian Revolution (1917). Among births to note are Italian painter Giotto (1267), Dutch Humanist Erasmus (1467), Jonathan Swift (1667), David Garrick and Horace Walpole (1717), Henry David Thoreau (1817), novelists Arnold Bennett and John Galsworthy (1867). Also born in 1867 were dramatist Luigi Pirandello, children’s book illustrator Arthur Rackman and sports coach & Herne Hill resident Sam Mussabini. Births in 1917 include Anthony Burgess, Arthur C Clarke, Eric Hobsbawm, Carson McCullers and John F Kennedy.
Jane Austen died in 1817, as did opera singer & Herne Hill resident Anna Storace. Poet Charles Baudelaire died 1867; actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and WW1 poets Edward Thomas and Arthur West died in 1917. Notable deaths in 1967 include author and editor J R Ackerley, who was born in Herne Hill, playwrights Joe Orton and Elmer Rice, poets John Masefield, Dorothy Parker, Carl Sandburg and Harlem Renaissance poet and dramatist Langston Hughes.
The Carnegie Chess Club was established by Edward Ochagavia in 2000 when the Library was under threat of closure. He was keen to make the library not just a place for books but also to bring people living in the area together socially and stave off the threat. He learned to play when he was growing up in the Soviet Union where chess is almost a way of life and wanted to pass on his enjoyment of the game.