The first library and reading room in Upton was funded by William Inman and opened in about 1854. It was probably located in the village school in Rake Lane. At first a librarian, Thomas Seager, was employed, but by 1864 the schoolmaster was also the librarian.

In 1893 Mrs Hannay set up a reading room in a builing in the Village called the Arches, it was open on a Saturday night and any villager could read a book for 1d. This continued until the building was demolished in 1929.

There where two commercial libraries in Upton in the 1930s, the first was in Bridger's Newsagents and then a few years later, the second opened in Malley's Newsagent.

In 1937, Birkenhead Corporation built a library on land in Ford Road, almost opposite the Presbyterian Church.