John Passmore Edwards

Passmore Edwards, a Cornish carpenter's son who made money from newspapers and magazines, funded around seventy public buildings in the 1890s and 1900s, including some two dozen libraries in Cornwall and London. He refused a knighthood twice and tended to fund places he felt underserved, such as Cornish mining towns. A number of Passmore Edwards libraries, in Newlyn, Shoreditch and elsewhere, still stand, some now used for other community purposes.