British Museum

The British Museum in London is the United Kingdom's - and one of the world's - largest and most important museums of human history and culture. The museum was established in 1753 and was based largely on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on January 15, 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building.

History

Though principally a museum of antiquities today, the British Museum was founded as a 'universal museum'. This is reflected in the first bequest by Sir Hans Sloane, comprising some 40,000 printed books, 7,000 manuscripts, extensive natural history specimens, prints by Albrecht Dürer and antiquities from Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Middle and Far East and the Americas. The Foundation Act, passed on June 7 1753, added two other libraries to the Sloane collection. The Cottonian Library, assembled by Sir Robert Cotton, dated back to Elizabethan times and the Harleian library was the collection of the first and second Earls of Oxford. They were joined in 1757 by the Royal Library assembled by various British monarchs. Together these four 'Foundation collections' included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library, including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf.

Related Topics:
Albrecht Dürer - Egypt - Greece - Rome - Middle - Far East - Americas - June 7 - 1753 - Oxford - 1757 - British Library - Lindisfarne Gospels - Beowulf

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The body of Trustees (which until 1963 was headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker of the House of Commons) decided on Montagu House as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on a site now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost and the unsuitability of its location.

Related Topics:
1963 - Archbishop of Canterbury - Lord Chancellor - Speaker of the House of Commons - Montagu House - Buckingham Palace

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After its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Library and David Garrick's library of 1,000 printed plays, but had few ancient relics and would have been unrecognisable to visitors of the modern museum. The first notable addition to the collection of antiquities was by Sir William Hamilton, British Ambassador to Naples, who sold his collection of Greek and Roman artifacts to the museum in 1782. In the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid. After the defeat of the French in the Battle of the Nile in 1801 the British Museum acquired more Egyptian sculpture and the Rosetta Stone. Many Greek sculptures followed, notably the Towneley collection in 1805 and the infamous Elgin Marbles in 1816.

Related Topics:
David Garrick - William Hamilton - Naples - Greek - Roman - 19th century - French - Battle of the Nile - 1801 - Rosetta Stone - Elgin Marbles

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The collection soon outgrew its surroundings and the situation became urgent with the donation in 1822 of King George III's personal library of 65,000 volumes, 19,000 pamphlets, maps, charts and topographical trawings to the museum. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished in 1845 and replaced by a design by the neoclassical architect Sir Robert Smirke.

Related Topics:
1822 - King George III - Neoclassical - Robert Smirke

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Roughly contemporary with the construction of the new building was the career of a man sometimes called the 'second founder' of the British Museum, the Italian librarian Antonio Panizzi. Under his supervision the British Museum Library quintupled in size and became a well-organised institution worthy of being called a national library. The quadrangle at the centre of Smirke's design proved to be a waste of valuable space and was filled at Panizzi's request by a circular Reading Room of cast iron, designed by Smirke's son, Sydney Smirke.

Related Topics:
Antonio Panizzi - Reading Room - Cast iron - Sydney Smirke

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The natural history collections were an integral part of the British Museum until their removal to the new British Museum (Natural History), now the Natural History Museum, in 1887. The ethnography collections were until recently housed in the short-lived Museum of Mankind in Piccadilly; they have now returned to Bloomsbury and the Department of Ethnography has been renamed the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

Related Topics:
Natural History Museum - 1887 - Ethnography - Museum of Mankind - Piccadilly - Africa - Oceania - Americas

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The temporary exhibition Treasures of Tutankhamun, held by the British Museum in 1972, was the most successful in British history, attracting 1,694,117 visitors. In the same year the Act of Parliament establishing The British Library was passed, separating the collection of manuscripts and printed books from the British Museum. The Government suggested a site at St Pancras for the new British Library but the books did not leave the museum until 1997.

Related Topics:
Tutankhamun - 1972 - British Library - Manuscripts - St Pancras

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With the bookstacks in the central courtyard of the museum now empty, the process of demolition for Sir Norman Foster's glass-roofed Great Court could begin. The Great Court, opened in 2000, while undoubtedly improving circulation around the museum, was criticised for having a lack of exhibition space at a time when the museum was in serious financial difficulties and many galleries were closed to the public. In 2002 the museum was even closed for a day when its staff protested about proposed redundancies. A few weeks later the theft of a small Greek statue was blamed on lack of security staff.

Related Topics:
Sir Norman Foster - 2000 - 2002

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