THE widow of TS Eliot has donated £2.5m to help build a new wing of the world’s largest independent lending library, which will be named after the Nobel prize-winning poet.

The gift from Valerie Eliot follows a long-running appeal by the London Library, of which her late husband was president for 13 years.

The annexe to the 167-year-old institution in St James’s Square, central London, will be called TS Eliot House. The poet’s widow will appear at a ceremony in June.

Her £2.5m donation is likely to be funded in part through royalties handed to the Eliot estate by Lord Lloyd-Webber, whose West End musical Cats was inspired by Eliot’s verse.

The overall cost of refurbishing the library and acquiring a neighbouring property to build a new wing is £25.7m. Just over £16m of this total has been raised so far, including the latest gift from Valerie Eliot, the poet’s second wife, who is now 82.

Her American-born husband became a British citizen in 1927 and was president of the London Library from 1952 until his death in 1965. He once professed that “if this library disappeared, it would be a disaster to the world of letters”.

Founded in 1841 by Thomas Carlyle, the library, which has a collection of more than 1m books and documents, has long been at the heart of the capital’s intellectual life.

John Stuart Mill, the liberal philosopher, drew up its original list of political books, William Thackeray kept the accounts and Charles Dickens used it to research A Tale of Two Cities.

Sir Tom Stoppard, the playwright, is the library’s current president and its 8,000 members include Jeremy Paxman and Margaret Drabble.

Last year the library was beset by an unseemly row after Stoppard pushed through a proposal to increase the cost of annual subscriptions by 80% from £210 to £375.

He said the move was “exceptional, but necessary” to plug a £1.4m deficit in library finances. “If we do not put the day-to-day running costs of the library on a firm footing now, it will certainly struggle - or worse,” he told members.

However, many of London’s literati disagreed. Bamber Gascoigne, the former presenter of University Challenge, suggested costs could be cut by reducing the size of the library's collection.

Lottie Cole, the library’s chief fundraiser, confirmed the details of the Eliot donation. “It hasn’t been announced to members yet,” said Cole.

The musical Cats was inspired by a collection of poetry by TS Eliot called Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

The show opened in Britain in 1981 and has generated worldwide takings of £1.4 billion.

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