The Marx Memorial Library in London, United Kingdom is a library, archive, educational, and community outreach charity focused on Marxist and wider socialist bodies of work. England and Wales charity number: 270309. Its collection comprises over 60,000 books, pamphlets, items, and newspapers on Marxism, socialism, and working class history. It is currently located in a Grade II listed building along Clerkenwell Green. Overview The library opened in 1933 at 37a Clerkenwell Green, formerly home to many radical organisations, and base of an important publishing operation. The building was built as the Welsh Charity School between 1737-8. The front elevation of the building was rebuilt between 1968 and 1969. The Library now also houses "The Printers Collection" consisting of the archives of the printing and papermaking unions of the UK and Ireland. The collection includes union documents, magazines, photographs, badges and memorabilia. The archive was opened in March 2009 by Derek Simpson Joint General Secretary of Unite and Tony Burke, Assistant General Secretary of Unite. History 18th century The building now occupied by the library was originally built in 1738 to house the Welsh Charity School. It was designed by James Steer, and the construction funded by subscriptions. The school moved out to a new home in Gray's Inn Lane (now Gray's Inn Road) in 1772. The building subsequently became (in part) a public house, the Northumberland Arms; and was put to other commercial uses. 19th century Part of it was occupied from 1872 onwards by the radical London Patriotic Society; and from 1893 (with the financial backing of William Morris) by the Twentieth Century Press Ltd, publishers of Justice, the newspaper of the Social Democratic Federation. 20th century The Press expanded to take over the whole building in 1908–9, and remained until 1922. It was during this period, in 1902–3, that the exiled V. I. Lenin worked in the building, publishing seventeen issues of his newspaper Iskra (Spark) from here. The office he allegedly used is preserved as a memorial to him, although this room did not in fact exist at the time he was there: however, he may have worked in an earlier office partly on its site. Following a further period of commercial use, the Marx Memorial Library occupied part of the building in 1933, eventually taking over the whole. The library features the fresco The worker of the future upsetting the economic chaos of the present, painted