British Museum in LONDON

History  

Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum Sir Hans Sloane
Though primarily a museum of cultural art objects and antiques today, the British Museum was a "universal museum" set up. Its foundations lie in the will of the physician and naturalist Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753). Throughout his life Sloane collected an enviable collection of curiosities and do not want to see his collection broken up after death, he bequeathed him King George II, for the nation, for the princely sum of £ 20,000 [6].
At that time there was Sloane's collection of 71,000 objects of all kinds [7], including 40,000 printed books, 7,000 manuscripts, extensive natural history cabinet including 337 volumes of dried plants, prints and drawings including those of Albrecht Dürer and antiquities from Egypt, Greece, Rome, ancient Middle and Far East and South America. [8]  

 Foundation (1753)
On 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament that the British Museum. [B] founded the Foundation Act, has two other libraries, the Sloane collection. The library of Sir Robert Cotton Cottonian mounted, came from Elizabethan times and the Harleian Library, the collection of the Earl of Oxford. They were joined in 1757 by the Royal Library, assembled by various British monarchs. Together, these four "Foundation Collection" many of the most valuable books now included in the British Library [9], including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the only surviving copy of Beowulf [C].
The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum - national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely accessible to the public and with the aim of collecting everything. Sloane collection, while including a vast Miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. [10] The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts held a literary and antiquarian element and meant that the British Museum now has both the national museum and library. [11] Cabinet of Curiosities (1753-1778) Montagu House
The body of Trustees on a converted mansion dating from the 17th Century, Montagu House, as the location for the museum, which it decided to bought by the Montagu family for £ 20,000. The Board of Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the site of the present Buckingham Palace, for reasons of cost and the unsuitability of the site. [12] [d]
With the acquisition of Montagu House, the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars, 15 Opened in January 1759. [13] In 1757, King George II gave the old Royal Library and was published with it the right to a copy of each book in the country to ensure that the museum's library would expand indefinitely. The dominance of Natural History began to diminish books and manuscripts, when the museum acquired in 1772 observed its first antiquities, Sir William Hamilton's collection of Greek vases. In the few years after the founding of the British Museum received several other donations, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War tracts and David Garrick's library of 1,000 printed plays, but not yet contained few visible vestiges of the modern museum visitor. [Edit] [Edit] Inertia and Energy (1778-1800)
From 1778 brought a display of objects from the South Seas from the round-the-world voyages of Captain James Cook and the travels of other explorers fascinated visitors with a look at previously unknown lands. The legacy of a collection of books, gems, coins, prints and drawings by Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode in 1800 did much for the museum's reputation increase, but Montagu House increasingly crowded and decrepit, and it was obvious that it is not grown more expansion [14].
The museum of the first notable addition to his collection of antiquities, since its founding, by Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), British ambassador to Naples, his collection of Greek and Roman artifacts of the museum in 1784 along with a number of sold Antiques and other produce. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784 refers to the Hamiltonian legacy of a "Colossal foot of Apollo in Marble". It was one of two Hamilton antiquities collection for him by Francesco prognathism, a pupil of Pietro Fabris, who also helped draw a series of drawings of Mount Vesuvius by Hamilton to the Royal Society in London. [Edit] Growth and Change (1800-1825) The Rosetta Stone on display in the British Museum in 1874
In the early 19th Century laid the foundation for the extensive collection of sculptures began to move and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts shows dominated the antiquities. After the defeat of the French campaign in the Battle of the Nile, in 1801 the British Museum acquired more Egyptian sculpture and in 1802 King George III presented the Rosetta Stone - the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs. [15] presents and purchases of Henry Salt, British Consul General in Egypt, beginning with the colossal bust of Ramses II in 1818, laid the foundation stone of the collection of Egyptian monumental sculpture. [16] Many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the collection of Charles Towneley, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1806, from Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, ambassador of the Ottoman Empire from 1799 to 1803, the large collection of marble sculptures from the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens and transferred them into the United Kingdom. In 1816, these masterpieces of Western art, were from the British Museum by the law adopted by Parliament and in the museum afterwards. [17] The collections have been supplemented by the frieze of Bassae Phigaleia, Greece in 1815. The ancient Near Eastern collection had its beginnings in 1825 [with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich 18].
In 1802 a building committee set up for the expansion of the museum plan is set, and on through the donation in the year 1822 the King's Library, personal library of King George III, consisting of 65 000 volumes, 19,000 pamphlets, maps, charts and topographical drawing highlighted. [19] The neo-classical architect Sir Robert Smirke was prompted plans for an eastern extension of the museum "... for the reception of the royal library and a gallery of them ..."[ 20] and put forward plans for today's square buildings, many of which can be seen today. The dilapidated old house was demolished, Montagu and work on the King's Library Gallery began in 1823. The extension of the East Wing was completed in 1831. But it was no longer needed after the founding of the National Gallery, London 1824, [e] proposed gallery, and the space on the upper floor was given to the Natural History Collections [21]. [Edit] The largest building site in Europe (1825-1850) From left to right: Montagu House, Townley Gallery and Sir Robert Smirke's west wing under construction (July 1828) The Grenville Library, (1875)
The museum was a large construction site as a neo-classical Sir Robert Smirke created the building gradually. The King's Library, the ground floor of the east wing, was passed in 1827 and has been described as one of the most beautiful rooms in London, although not completely open to the general public, were arranged to 1857, but specific openings during the Universal Exhibition of 1851. Despite the increased pollution and disturbance of the collection, exceeded the new building. [Edit]
Archaeological excavations
In 1840 the museum was involved in his first overseas excavations, Charles Fellows's expedition to Xanthos, was in Asia Minor, whence came the remains of the tombs of the rulers of ancient Lycia, including the Nereid Payava and monuments. In 1857 Charles Newton was up to fourth Century BC Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, to discover one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. In the 1840s and 1850s, the museum excavations supported by AH Layard in Assyria and others on sites such as Nimrud and Nineveh. Of particular interest to curators of the eventual discovery of the great library of Ashurbanipal's cuneiform tablets that make the museum a focal point was contributed for Assyrian studies [22].
Sir Thomas Grenville (1755-1846), a trustee of the British Museum from 1830 assembled a fine library of 20,240 volumes, which he left the museum in his will. The books in January 1847 in 21 horse-drawn vans arrived. The only free space for the great library was a room originally intended for manuscripts, between the main entrance of the hall and the Manuscript Saloon. The books remained here until the British Library moved to St Pancras in 1998.  
Collecting the rest of the world (1850-1875)
The opening of the forecourt in 1852 marked the completion of the Robert Smirke's Plan 1823, but already has been adjusted to cope with the unexpected growth of the collections. Infill galleries were for Assyrian sculptures and Sydney Smirke's Round Reading Room built with room for a million books, opened in 1857. Because of the continuing pressure on space, the decision was taken to the natural history in a new building in South Kensington, which would later move in the British Museum of Natural History.
Around the same time as the construction of the new building was the career of a man sometimes called the "second founder" of the British Museum, the Italian librarian Anthony Panizzi. Under his supervision the British Museum Library (now called the British Library) quintupled in size and was worthy of a well-organized institution, National Library, the largest library in the world according to the National Library of Paris. [11] The square in the middle of the Smirke design proved to be a waste of valuable space and was designed at the request Panizzi by a circular Reading Room of cast iron, Smirke brother of Sydney Smirke filled [23]. Panorama of the circular reading room Wikinews has related news: Relics of 39 saints of the British Museum found
By the middle of the 19th Century, the museum's collections were relatively circumscribed, but in 1851 began with the appointment to the staff at the Augustus Wollaston Franks to curate the collections, the museum for the first time the British and European medieval antiquities, prehistory, collect branching out into Asia and diversify their holdings of ethnography. Overseas excavations continued and John Turtle Wood discovered the remains of the fourth Century BC Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, another wonder of the ancient world [24].  

Scholarship and legacies (1875-1900)
The natural history collections were an integral part of the British Museum until her move to the new British Museum of Natural History, now the Natural History Museum, in 1887. With the departure and the completion of the new White Wing (fronting Montague Street) in 1884 more space for antiques and Ethnography and the library was able to expand further. This was a time of innovation has been introduced as electric lighting, in the reading room and exhibition halls [25].
In 1882 the museum in the founding of the independent Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society) of the first British body to carry out research in Egypt was involved. A legacy of Miss Emma Turner in 1892 funded excavations in Cyprus. In 1897 the death of the great collector and curator, AW Franks, was a huge estate of 3,300 finger rings, 153 drinking vessels, 512 pieces of Continental porcelain, 1,500 Netsuke, 850 inro, over 30,000 bookplates and miscellaneous jewelry and plate, among them the Oxus Treasure followed [26].
In 1898 Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild inherited the glittering contents of his New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor. This consisted of nearly 300 pieces of objets d'art et de vertu, exquisite examples of jewelry, plate, enamels, carvings, glass and maiolica, in the tradition of a treasury or treasuries, as they contain formed by the Renaissance princes of Europe [27]. Baron Ferdinand's will was very specific, and failure to comply with the conditions it would empty the collection should

    in a special room for the so-called legacy Waddesdon Room separate and apart from the other contents of the museum and from then on for ever after, always the same as in the room or in another room, which will be replaced for it [27].
 
New century, new building (1900-1925) Opening of the White Wing, King Edward VII's Galleries (1914)
Through the last years of the nineteenth century the British Museum's collections were so much that the museum building was not big enough for them increases. In 1895 the trustees of the 69 houses of the museum bought with the intention of demolishing them and building around the western, northern and eastern side of the museum. The first step was the construction of the northern wing beginning of 1906th
All the while holding the collections grows. Emily Torday collected in Central Africa, unearthed Aurel Stein in Central Asia, DG Hogarth, Leonard Woolley and TE Lawrence at Carchemish. In 1918, because of the threat of war, bombed some buildings were evacuated to a Postal Tube Railway at Holborn, the National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth) and a country house near Malvern. On the way back to the Ancient World from wartime storage in 1919, some objects were found deteriorated. A temporary conservation laboratory was set up to May 1920 and became a permanent department in 1931. It is the oldest in continuous existence. [28] In 1923, the British Museum welcomed over one million visitors. 

 Disorder and 
Reconstruction (1925-1950) 

New mezzanine floors have been designed and stacks of books in an attempt to handle the flood of books converted ready. to build in 1931 the art dealer Sir Joseph Duveen offered funds to a gallery for the Parthenon sculptures. Designed by American architect John Russell Pope, was completed in 1938. The appearance of the exhibition halls began as a dark red Victorian differed modern pastel shades. [F], however, were scattered in August 1939 because of the impending war and the likelihood of air raids of the Parthenon Sculptures along the museum's most valuable collections change to secure basements, cottages, Aldwych underground station, the National Library of Wales and a quarry. The evacuation was timely, because in 1940 the Duveen Gallery was damaged by bombing. [29] The Museum continues to by all countries and centuries: one of the most spectacular additions were the 2,600 BC Mesopotamia, Ur of treasure discovered during Leonard Woolley's gain from 1922 to 1934 excavations. Gold, silver and garnet grave goods from the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo (1939) and late Roman silver tableware from Mildenhall, Suffolk (1946). The immediate postwar years were taken with the return of the collections of protection and restoration of the museum after the flash. Work began on the restoration of the damaged Duveen Gallery. [Edit] A new face to the public (1950-1975) The newly opened gallery Duveen (1980)
In 1953 the museum celebrated its two hundredth birthday. Many changes followed: the first full-time were in-house designer and publications officer appointed in 1964, an organization of Friends was set in 1968, an Education Service was established in 1970 and publisher 1973rd In 1963 a new Act of Parliament introduced administrative reforms. It was easier to give items, changed the constitution of the Board of Trustees and the Natural History Museum was completely independent. Until 1959, the coins and medals Office suite, completely destroyed during the war, was rebuilt and reopened, attention turned to the gallery with new tastes in design, to transform the Robert Smirke of Classical and Near Eastern galleries. [30] In 1962 it was finally restored Duveen Gallery and the Parthenon sculptures were moved back into it again at the center of the museum. [G]


In the 1970s the museum was again expanded. Other services were introduced to the public, attendance rose, with the special exhibition "Treasures of Tutankhamun" in 1972 1.694.117 attract visitors, the most successful in British history. In the same year, the Law of Parliament establishing the British Library was handed over, separates the collection of manuscripts and printed books from the British Museum. This left the museum with antiques, coins, medals and paper money, prints and drawings, and ethnography. A pressing problem was room for additions to the library, which now requires an additional 1 / 4 miles of shelves each year. The government proposed a site in St. Pancras for the new British Library, but the books do not leave the museum until 1997.  

The Great Court shows (1975-2000) Great Court - Quadrangle 1857 and Sydney Smirke's Round Reading Room
The departure of the British Library to providing a new site in St Pancras, finally achieved in 1998, the place for the books needed. He also created the opportunity for the vacant place in the 19 Robert Smirke's century central square in the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court redevelop - the largest covered square in Europe - which opened in 2000.
The ethnography collections, which was in the short-lived Museum of Mankind at 6 Burlington Gardens was located in 1970 were new purpose-built galleries returned.
The museum collects again readjusted its policy as an interest in the "modern" objects: prints, drawings, medals and the decorative arts reawakened. Ethnographic field research was in such diverse places as New Guinea, Madagascar, Romania, Guatemala and Indonesia and conducted excavations there were in the Middle East, Egypt, Sudan and the United Kingdom. The Weston Gallery of Roman Britain, opened in 1997, highlighted a number of recently discovered treasures, the wealth of what was a less important part of the Roman Empire demonstrated. The museum turned increasingly towards private sector funding for buildings, acquisitions and other purposes. [31] [Edit] The museum today African Garden - The British Museum facade - from the BBC TV program Ground Force created
Today it is no longer houses collections of natural history, and the books and manuscripts are now held once a part of the independent British Library. The museum still maintains its universality in its collections of artifacts that the cultures of the world, ancient and modern. The original collection in 1753 has become more than thirteen million objects in the British Museum, Natural History Museum in the 70 million and 150 million at the British Library.
The Round Reading Room, which was designed by architect Smirke Sydney opened in 1857. For nearly 150 years, came here to consult the Museum's researchers large library. The Reading Room closed in 1997 when the National Library (British Library), moved to new premises in St. Pancras. Today, it has been transformed into the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Center. This includes the Paul Hamlyn Library books on the collections of the museum, which is open to all visitors [32].
With the shelves in the courtyard of the museum is empty, could begin the process of demolition for Lord Foster's glass-covered Great Court. The Great Court, opened in 2000, while undoubtedly improving circulation around the museum, was from a lack of exhibition space at a time when the museum was in serious financial difficulties and many galleries were closed to the public criticism. accommodated the same time, the African and Oceanic collections, which were temporarily in 6 Burlington Gardens were a new gallery in the North Wing of the Sainsbury family finances given [33].  

Governance
 See also: Director of the British Museum
In technical terms, the British Museum is a non-departmental public body of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport through a three-year funding agreement is sponsored. His head is the director. The British Museum was renamed since its foundation by a "Principal Librarian run" (when the book collections were part of the museum), a role that Director and Principal Librarian 'in 1898, and "Director" in 1973 (on the separation the British Library) [34].
A board of 25 trustees (with the Director as Accounting Officer for the purposes of reporting to the government) is responsible for general management and control of the museum, in line with the British Museum Act of 1963 and the Museums and Galleries Act 1992 [35]. Before the Act of 1963 it was chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Board was formed on the museum foundation, to maintain their collections in the nation's confidence, without actually owning them themselves, meet and now a mainly advisory role. Trustee appointments are by the regulatory framework in the code of conduct for public office, the Office of the Commissioner issued Public events defined rules. For a list of current trustees, see here [36]. [Edit] Building The entrance to the Museum
The Greek Revival facade Great Russell Street is a typical building of Sir Robert Smirke, ft with 44 columns in the Ionic order of 45 (14 m) high, close to the Temple of Athena at Priene Polias based in Asia Minor. The pediment above the main entrance is by sculptures by Sir Richard Westmacott representation of the progress of civilization, consisting of fifteen allegorical figures, installed in 1852 decorated.
The construction around the yard with the East Wing (The King's Library) in 1823-1828, through the North Wing in 1833-1838, which followed originally housed galleries including a reading room now begun the Wellcome Gallery. The work was also continued demolition of the northern half of the West Wing (The Egyptian Sculpture Gallery) from 1826 to 1831 with Montagu House in 1842 to make room for the last part of the west wing, completed in 1846, and the south wing with its great colonnade, in 1843 initiated and completed in 1847, when the front hall and grand staircase were opened to the public. [37] The museum is faced with Portland stone, but the outer walls and other parts of the building were using Haytor granite from Dartmoor in South Devon transported through the unique Haytor Granite Tramway. [38] The King's Library
In 1846 Robert Smirke as an architect of the museum by his brother Sydney Smirke, the main addition was the Round Reading Room 1854-1857 replaced, at 140 feet (43 meters) in diameter, it was the second largest dome in the world, the Pantheon Rome is a bit wider.
The next major addition was the White Wing 1882-1884 has been behind the eastern end of the south front, with the architect Sir John Taylor.
In 1895, the Parliament, the Museum Trustees, a loan of £ 200,000 from the Duke of Bedford, all 69 houses, the buildings of the museum in the five surrounding streets secured - Great Russell Street, Montague Street, Montague Purchase Place, Bedford Square and Bloomsbury Street [39]. The Board of Trustees planned to demolish these houses and build around the western, northern and eastern side of the museum's new galleries that would completely fill the block on which the museum stands. The architect Sir John James Burnet petition was overly ambitious long-term plans, the building forward on all three sides covered. Most of the houses in Montague Place were a few years knocked after the sale. From this great plan, only the Edward VII Galleries in the middle of the northern front were ever built, these were built from 1906 to 1914 to the design by JJ Burnet, and opened by King George V and Queen Mary 1914th They now house the museum's collection of drawings and prints and Oriental antiquities. It was not enough money to more new buildings, and so the other houses in the streets, almost all are still. Proposed British Museum Extension, 1906
The Duveen Gallery, located in the west of the Egyptian, Greek and Assyrian sculpture galleries, was designed by the Elgin Marbles by the American Beaux-Arts architect John Russell Pope house. Although completed in 1938, she was hit by a bomb and in 1940 was half expired for 22 years, before reopening in 1962. Other areas during the Second World War bombing raids damaged included: not in September 1940 two unexploded bombs struck the Edward VII Galleries, the King's Library received a direct hit from a high explosive bomb dropped incendiary bombs on the dome of the Round Reading Room, but did little damage, and on the night of 10 to 11 May 1941 several incendiaries fell on the southwest corner of the museum, to destroy the book stack and 150,000 pounds in the courtyard and the galleries around the top edge of the grand staircase - the damage is not repaired fully until the early 1960s [40]. The British Museum, Great Court
The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court is a covered square in the middle of the British Museum by the engineers Buro Happold and the architects Foster and Partners designed. [41] The Great Court opened in December 2000 and is the largest covered square in Europe. The roof is a glass and steel construction with 1656 unique shaped glass panes. In the middle of the Great Court of the British Library reading room is cleared, its functions now moved to St Pancras. The reading room is open to any member of the public who wants to read it there.
Today, the British Museum has become one of the largest museums in the world, with an area of over 75,000 m² of exhibition space around 50,000 units present from his collection. [42] There are nearly one hundred galleries open to the public, representing two miles (3.2 km) of exhibition space, although the less popular have restricted opening times. However, the lack of which has resulted in a large temporary exhibition space of 100 million pounds World Conservation and Exhibition Centre to give and concentrate all the facilities maintenance of the museum in a Conservation Centre. This project was announced in July 2007, with the architects Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners. It was the building permit in December 2009 and completion is expected for 2013. [43] 

 Departments Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan
The British Museum houses the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of Egyptian antiquities outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. A collection of immense significance for the scope and quality, it contains objects from all periods of practically every site of importance in Egypt and the Sudan. Together, they illustrate every aspect of the cultures in the Nile Valley (including Nubia), the pre-dynastic Neolithic Age (10,000 BC) to the Coptic (Christian) period (12th century AD), a period of over 11,000 years ago. The British Museum, Room 4 - Colossal Granite head of Amenhotep III (1350 BC)
Egyptian antiquities are part of the British Museum collection since its founding in 1753 after receiving 160 Egyptian objects [44] by Sir Hans Sloane. After the defeat of French troops under Napoleon at the Battle of the Nile in 1801 collected the Egyptian antiquities were seized by the British army and presented to the British Museum in 1803. These works, which were the famous Rosetta stone, containing the first important group of large sculptures of the museum to be acquired. Then appointed the British Consul Henry Salt as in Egypt, who amassed a huge collection of antiques. Most of the antiquities Salt was collected from the British Museum and the Musée du Louvre acquired. From 1866 the collection consisted of approximately 10,000 objects. Antiquities from the excavations started at the museum in the late 19th Century as a result of the work of the Egypt Exploration Fund in the context of the efforts of EA Wallis Budge come. The collection was 57 000 objects from 1924. Active support by the Museum for excavations in Egypt continued in useful acquisitions during the 20th Century created, led to changes in laws Antiquities in Egypt, the suspension of the policy allows findings to be exported. The size of the Egyptian collection now stands at over 110,000 objects. [45] The British Museum, Room 4 - colossal bust of Ramses II (1250 BC)