Enriqueta Augustina Rylands held in Kensington, London, on 6 October. The marriage was childless but two children were adopted: Arthur Forbes (a cousin of Enriqueta) and Maria Castiglioni. When John Rylands died in 1888, Enriqueta as the inheritor of most of his estate of £2,574,922 became a major shareholder of his family textile firm and in the Manchester Ship Canal. In memory of her husband, Enriqueta founded the John Rylands Library. She admired the design of Basil Champneys's library for Mansfield College, Oxford, and contracted him to develop something similar, on a more lavish scale. She secretly negotiated the purchase of the 2nd
Newcastle City Library on the corner of John Dobson Street and New Bridge Street West. The neighbouring Laing Art Gallery had originally been built as an extension of the old Victorian library and was left somewhat out of context following the demolition of the older building, with a blank brick wall facing towards the city centre. The 1960s building rapidly became unfit for the purpose of a modern public library with its name changing in the late 1990s from Central Library to City Library. Additionally, the 1960s design of the library became regarded as exceedingly ugly, with local TV presenter and author John