The Warrington Perambulating Library has been described by historian Ian Orton as "one of the most revolutionary library advances of the nineteenth century". Among the earliest mobile libraries in the UK, it was set up by the Warrington Mechanics' Institute in Cheshire, England in 1858. Keen to increase borrowing from its library, the institute determined in the summer of that year to raise money for the purchase of a one-horse van, which it planned to fill with books and send each week "to every door in Warrington and the vicinity".