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Originally Posted by Less
The Owl is about the original 'Lady of the Lamp', Ms Nightingale.
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As opposed the the current 'Lady of the Lamp', Mrs Knight, N Gayle.
The 'gobbin' is local name for a sliver of coal, so small that it fell out of the coal sacks or off the trucks around the coal face. The main coal mine in Oswaldtwistle used to be around where the library is now (roughly). People who lived around the coal face were very poor so they would go out at the end of the shift and collect all the slivers of coal that had fallen off the truck, thus they were named 'gobbiners' i.e. collectors of gobbins.
When the library was built on the site a lamp (actually two lamps originally) were placed there to commemorate the mining heritage. That's why gobbiners are people who live 'above the lamp'.