Encyclopedia
The
British Museum in
London is one of the world's largest and most important
museums of human history and
culture. Its collections, which number over seven million objects from all continents, illustrate and document the story of human culture from its beginning to the present. As with all other national museums and art galleries in Britain, the Museum charges no admission fee, although charges are levied for some temporary special exhibitions.
It 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 15 January 1759 in
Montagu House in
Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the
British Museum in
South Kensington in 1887. Until 1997, when the
British Library opened to the public, the British Museum was unique in that it housed both a national museum of antiquities and a
national library in the same building. Its present chairman is Sir John Boyd and its director is Neil MacGregor.
History
Though principally a museum of cultural art objects and 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 7 June 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 is a heroic epic poem [i]. ...
.
The body of trustees 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.
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
Elgin Marbles in 1816.
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 drawings to the museum. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished in 1845 and replaced by a design by the
neoclassical architect Sir Robert Smirke.
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 brother, Sydney Smirke. This is where
Karl Marx famously carried out much of his research, and wrote some of his most important works.
The natural history collections were an integral part of the British Museum until their removal to the new British Museum , 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.
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.
With the bookstacks in the central courtyard of the museum now empty, the process of demolition for
Lord 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.
Controversy
It is a point of controversy whether museums should be allowed to possess artefacts taken from other countries, and the British Museum is a notable target for criticism. The
Parthenon Marbles and the
Benin Bronzes are among the most disputed objects in its collections, and organisations have been formed demanding the return of both sets of artefacts to their native countries of
Greece and
Nigeria respectively.
The British Museum has refused to return either set, or any of its other disputed items, stating that the "restitutionist premise, that whatever was made in a country must return to an original geographical site, would empty both the British Museum and the other great museums of the world". The Museum has also argued that the British Museum Act of 1963 legally prevents it from selling any of its valuable artefacts, even the ones not on display. Critics have particularly argued against the right of the British Museum to own objects which it does not share with the public.
Supporters of the Museum claim that it has provided protection for artefacts that may have otherwise been damaged or destroyed if they had been left in their original environments. While some critics have accepted this, they also argue that the artefacts should now be returned to their countries of origin if there is sufficient expertise and desire there to preserve them.
The British Museum continues to assert that it is an appropriate custodian and has an inalienable right to its disputed artifacts under British law.
The building
The current structure replaced Montagu House of 1686.
The
Greek Revival façade facing Great Russell Street is a characteristic building of Sir Robert Smirke, with 44 columns in the
Ionic order 13.7 metres high, closely based on those of the temple of Athena Polias at Priene in
Asia Minor. The
pediment over the main entrance is decorated by sculptures by Sir
Richard Westmacott depicting
The Progress of Civilisation, consisting of fifteen allegorical figures , installed in 1852.
The construction commenced around the courtyard with the East Wing in 1823-28, followed by the North Wing in 1833-38, original this housed amongst other galleries a reading room now the Wellcome Gallery, work was also progressing on the northern half of the West Wing 1826-31, then Montagu House was demolished from 1842 to make room for the final part of the West Wing completed in 1846 and the South Wing with its great colonnade, this was initiated in 1843, and completed in 1847 when the Front Hall and Great Staircase were opened to the public.
In 1846 Robert Smirke was replaced as the Museum's architect by his brother Sydney Smirke, whose major addition was the Round Reading Room 1854-57; at 42.6 metres in diameter it was then the second widest dome in the world, the
Pantheon in Rome being slightly wider.
The next major addition was the White Wing 1882-84 added behind the eastern end of the South Front, the architect being Sir John Taylor.
In 1895 the Trustees purchased the 69 houses surronding the Museum with the intention of demolishing them and building around the West, North and East sides of the Museum new galleries that would completely fill the block on which the Museum stands. Of this grand plan only the Edward VII galleries in the centre of the North Front were ever constructed, these were built 1906-14 to the design of Sir John James Burnet and now house the Asian and Islamic collections.
The Duveen Gallery housing the Elgin Marbles was designed by the American
Beaux-Arts architect
John Russell Pope. Although completed in 1938 it was hit by a bomb in 1940 and remained semi-derelict for 22 years before reopening in 1962.
The
Queen Elizabeth II Great Court is a covered square at the centre of the British Museum designed by the architects
Foster and Partners. The Great Court opened in December 2000 and is the largest covered square in Europe. The roof is a glass and steel construction with 1,656 panes of uniquely shaped glass panes. At the centre of the Great Court is the Reading Room vacated by the
British Library, its functions now moved to St Pancras. The Reading Room is open to any member of the public who wishes to read there.
The collections
Highlights of the collections include:
Throughout history, Iran has been of great geostrategic [i] importance because of its centr ...
artifacts
The notorious Cupboard 55 in the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities, inaccessible by the public and known as "the Secretum", has a reputation for containing some of the most erotic objects in the British Museum. Though claiming to be from ancient cultures, many of the objects are Victorian fakes and are deemed unfit for public display on grounds of quality, rather than because of their supposed obscenity. In any case, the Museum's attitudes to material previously held to be 'obscene' has now changed, as shown by the
Warren Cup.
Trivia
- The British Museum, and especially the Reading Room, is a recurring setting in David Lodge's 1965 novel The British Museum Is Falling Down.
- The British Museum is also seen in The Mummy Returns is a 2001 movie [i] starring Brendan Fraser [i], Rachel Weisz [i], and is directed [i]...
although not from the outside. This view is actually of University College London.
Galleries
Joseph E. Hotung Gallery
Hellenistic galleries
External links
