9. Eastwood Library

An important collection

Eastwood library contains a large D.H. Lawrence collection, a Local History section and the Hopkin Collection (Opens in a new window). 

William ‘Willie’ Hopkin (1862-1951) was a well-known man in Lawrence’s Eastwood. He was a poet, philosopher, social reformer and local historian who was involved with many aspects of the town. He was a member of the Literary Society, on the committee for the British School evening classes, a Parish Councillor, and had been a Superintendent of the Wesleyan Chapel Sunday School.

Willie was a life-long friend of D.H. Lawrence, who used to attend his house on Devonshire Drive in Eastwood where meetings were held; a sort of open forum where all-comers could discuss religion, politics and education. He helped foster Lawrence’s belief that he could become a writer (remember how rare it was for someone from Lawrence’s background to do this).

It was at one of these meetings that Lawrence delivered his first paper titled ‘Art and the individual’: Argument: that Socialism should do more than just clothe the hungry – just as material comfort should not be solely for a privileged elite nor should beauty.

"It is art which opens to us the silences, the primordial silences which hold the secret of things, the great purposes, which are themselves silent" D.H. Lawrence, ‘Art and the Individual’.