The Evangelical Library 5-6 Gateway Mews, Ringway, Bounds Green, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, N11 2UT is a lending library for Christian ministers, students and other lay-persons. For many years the library was located on Chiltern Street in central London. It moved to North London

North London

North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...

 in mid-2009.

The Library was founded through the vision of Geoffrey Williams (1886–1975) to be a library that offered the very best of Protestant evangelical

Evangelicalism

Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...

 resources. In this aim he was much encouraged in 1938 by the then associate minister of Westminster Chapel

Westminster Chapel

Westminster Chapel is an evangelical church that has been based in central London since 1840. Situated in Buckingham Gate, just from Buckingham Palace and just off Victoria Street, the chapel has long been a popular place of worship for Evangelical Christians. The current building, seating around...

, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a Welsh Protestant minister, preacher and medical doctor who was influential in the Reformed wing of the British evangelical movement in the 20th century. For almost 30 years, he was the minister of Westminster Chapel in London...

. Before the move in 1944 to its Chiltern Street location close to Baker Street tube station

Baker Street tube station

Baker Street tube station is a station on the London Underground at the junction of Baker Street and the Marylebone Road. The station lies in Travelcard Zone 1 and is served by five different lines...

, it was known as the Beddington Free Grace Library, based in the tiny village of Beddington

Beddington

Beddington is a settlement between the London Boroughs of Sutton and Croydon. The BedZED low energy housing scheme is located here. In Beddington was a static inverter plant of HVDC Kingsnorth....

, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

.

The library is home to more than 80,000 evangelical books. It also has an extensive archive of several evangelical periodicals. It hosts an annual lecture and publishes a regular magazine called In Writing (formerly known as The Evangelical Library Bulletin).

Following a major refurbishment in 2005, the library now has a reference room, known as the Robert Sheehan Puritan and Research Centre, named in honour of the late Robert J. Sheehan (1951-1997), the former pastor of Welwyn Evangelical Church.

It has links with a number of similar libraries worldwide, which it also supports.

External links

• The Evangelical Library – official website
• The Evangelical Library's E-Books Project