Located in Uttarpara, a small town on the banks of the Hoogly river, this library was established by Babu Jaykrishna Mukherjee and opened to the public in 1859.

Born in 1808 in Uttarpara, Jaykrishna was the son of a clerk and businessman, Jagan Mohun Mukherjee.

With time, and further acquisition, Jaykrishna Mukherjee's reputation as a prominent landholder began to equal that of Dwarkanath Tagore.

An ardent social reformer and nationalist, Jaykrishna Mukherjee spearheaded the effort to establish a municipality in Uttarpara after the 1851 cholera epidemic there.

[1] On 15 April 1859, Jaykrishna Mukherjee formally opened the first free Public Library in India (and perhaps in Asia as well).

As Sir William Hunter had said, it is "a unique storehouse of local literature alike in English and vernacular tongues.

"[3] The library contains some old and rare volumes of periodicals in both Bengali and English: Dig Darshan, Sangbad Rasaraj, Somprakash, Tatvabodhini, Calcutta Monthly Journal, and Bengal Chronicle to name just a few.

Apart from containing the early 19th century publications of pioneers such as William Carey, Marshman, Ward, Halhade, Rammohan, etc.

All this aside from the 200 Sanskrit palm-leaf, plantain-leaf, and handmade paper manuscripts collected from Benaras, Kashmir, and the monasteries of Tibet.

Also available are Rammohan Roy's Gaudiya Vyakaran, Mrittyunjoy Vidyalankar's Rajabali, Madhusudhan's Hectorbadh Kavya, Baidyanath Acharya's Agyan Timir Nahak, Nrisinghadeb Ghosal's Visvagyan O Brahmagyan, Brajendralal Vidyalankar's Udvidvidya, Kalipada Mukhoadhyay's Rasasindhu Premavilas, Pramanthanath Sharma's Nabababu Bilas, Upendralal Mitra's Bastu Parichay, and Gadhadhar Bhattacharya's Shathik Muktibad.

Consequently, in her book "Six months in India", Miss Carpenter spends a not insignificant amount of space speaking about the library.

She informs us that "the lower storey of the building contains the library, and the upper rooms are reserved to accommodate respectable visitors, as well as to hold public meetings ….

"[5] The list of these "respectable visitors" includes the names of stalwarts like Michael Madhusudan Dutta (who stayed there with his family for 2 months in 1869 and then, again, in 1873); Sir.

In 1954, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, paid the library a visit and gave an assurance that he would do the needful.

Although reform proposals were drafted and forwarded to the Chief Minister in June and, later November, 1955 there was no substantial change in the situation until 1958.