The library was first proposed for construction in 1888, but the required finances could not be raised until 1900 when John Passmore Edwards was approached for assistance.

More recently usage of the Grade II listed building fell, and it eventually closed in 2003.

The local Tower Hamlets council put the building up for sale in a controversial transaction which has since been investigated during an enquiry into the behaviour of the borough's former mayor, Lutfur Rahman.

[5] Outside the library there formerly stood a statue of Clement Attlee, erected in 1988, who was the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Limehouse from 1922 to 1950, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951.

After the library closed, the statue was vandalised, and the council surrounded it with protective hoarding, before removing it for repair and recasting.