To Editor of the Times

THE BRITISH MUSEUM. | A FEW REASONS WHY THE BRITISH MUSEUM SHOULD BE PRESERVED IN ITS ANCIENT INTEGRITY, AS BY LAW ESTABLISHED.¹

From the time of the foundation of the British Museum,² more than a century ago, it has been a depository of objects of natural history and of antiquities of various kinds, united with books and manuscripts. As such it was instituted, and the Act of Parliament³ (26th year of George II.) which gave it vitality declared that “the several collections, additions, and library, so received into the said general laboratory, shall remain and be preserved therein, for public use to all posterity.”⁴ In order to ensure this permanence and to control the progress of the great national institution thus founded, trustees were appointed by the Act; some representing the chief public offices of the State in the person of its high functionaries, and these, with the exception of the Archbishop of Canterbury, were necessarily, therefore, trustees only for the period during which they held office; others were appointed as the representatives of liberal benefactors, to whose munificence the British Museum, in fact, mainly owed its origin.

By a fresh enactment, these trustees were to be the electors of 15 more to be added to their number, and one in addition was to be nominated by the Crown.

So unwieldy a body eventually had to be curtailed for the purposes of regular business, to transact which an improved Act, resulting from Royal Commission, directed the nomination by the trustees of 15 of their number, who were to act as a standing committee. These, in addition to the three principal trustees—viz., the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord-Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, were to undertake in fact the real administration of the Museum.

The century during which the Museum has existed has been one unparalleled in respect of the gigantic progress which scientific research has given to natural history; while the increased wealth of the nation, and the advance in the cultivation of public taste, have during that period communicated a great stimulus to the collection in the national Museum of objects connected with the purposes for which it was instituted. The natural history collections have increased to what are in fact several departments, each vying with and many surpassing the finest collections of their kind in other parts of the world. The books have expanded to a library highly worthy of this country, and the manuscripts, the prints, and the antiquities are of equal importance.

The trustees have watched this rapid progress of the collections under their care with a constant anxiety to meet the fresh requirements for space which that progress demanded by gradual but continual accessions of ground contiguous to the Museum.

Until recently the enlargements thus contemplated steadily progressed. A check, however, was given to them by the promise of space within the Museum walls which was entertained at least by those trustees who represent natural history, on the occasion of Mr. Panizzi⁵ proposing his admirable scheme for converting the quadrangle of the Museum into what should be at once a noble reading-room and a most comprehensive library. By the carrying out of this scheme, which has been so eminently successful, a space was, it was hoped, to be created for the accession to the library for the next half-century, and also that some of the large rooms now occupied by the old library were to have been devoted to the reception of other collections. This hope has not, however, been fulfilled.

About the same time that the new library and reading room were in the course of erection, the question was raised, whether the collections of natural objects should not be separated from those devoted to the works of man? Had this proposition merely contemplated the segregation of the Museum into distinct parts, or into buildings contiguous to one another and to it, no naturalist could have opposed the suggestion. Indeed, those of the trustees who especially take an interest in its natural history departments have always desired so to extend the building northwards as to give to natural history a separate part of the Museum, though at the same time one in juxtaposition with the rest. But for the last four years no steps whatever have been taken to carry out the recommendation of this committee; it having been understood that some great change was impending, and that nothing could be done in the way of accommodation, adaptation, or improvement, until the decision of the Government and the Parliament was obtained as to this intended operation. The management of the different departments of the Museum is assigned to distinct committees of the trustees; and it is an important fact that the Committee for Natural History has always been unanimous in the opinion that it is of the utmost importance, with a view to preserve the popular regard for, no less than to facilitate the study of, the collections of natural history, that those collections should not be removed from Bloomsbury. That they should be separated from the halls and galleries devoted to art need never necessitate their detachment from the great national library. It was under the influence of a similar conviction that in the year 1858 a very considerable body of men of science addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the following document,⁶ embodying the opinions which had been unanimously advocated by the Natural History Committee of the Trustees:—

“MEMORIAL OF THE PROMOTERS AND CULTIVATORS OF SCIENCE ON THE SUBJECT OF THE PROPOSED SEVERANCE FROM THE BRITISH MUSEUM OF ITS NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS; ADDRESSED TO HER MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT.

“The Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the best site for a National Gallery, and recent discussions in Parliament, having led to the contemplation of breaking up the British Museum by severing from it the Natural History Collections, we, the undersigned, promoters and cultivators of natural knowledge, beg to record our strong objections to such removal, and for the following reasons:—

“I. The British Museum, when established by Act of Parliament in 1755, was essentially a Natural History Collection, the enlightened views of its founder, Sir Hans Sloane,⁷ being that it should ‘be rendered as useful as possible, as well towards satisfying the desire of the curious as for the improvement, knowledge, and information of all persons.’⁸

“II. The object of Sir Hans Sloane has been so satisfactorily carried out that, according to the Report of the last Royal Commission which inquired into the whole state of the Museum (1849), ‘the evidence of men of the highest authority in science was referred to with great satisfaction to show that the Natural History Collections were, as a whole, equal, it not superior to any in the world.’⁹

“III. While we are aware that much greater space is required to provide for the reception of antiquities and ancient sculpture (chiefly on the ground floor), it has been ascertained by the trustees that, when additional buildings shall be called for, they can be extended northwards in halls requiring little embellishment, and, according to a plan laid before the trustees by Mr. Smirke,¹⁰ involving a considerably less expenditure than that which must be incurred by a transference of those collections to any other spot, and the consequent erection of an entirely new edifice. On this point we beg to quote the following resolutions adopted by the trustees of the British Museum, composing the standing committee, as printed in a return to the House of Commons dated the 4th February, 1858:—

“ ‘The committee having had under their consideration the report of the principal librarian,¹¹ dated 10th of November, 1857, resolved. —

“ ‘1. That it appears from such report that there is a great deficiency of space at present for the proper exhibition of the different collections in the different departments of the Museum, and that there is no vacant space now belonging to the trustees which will be sufficient to provide for such deficiency.

“ ‘2. That in providing an adequate space for that purpose it is very desirable to contemplate the future and progressive, as well as the actual and immediate, requirements of the British Museum.

“ ‘3. That it appears to the trustees that the best mode of providing for such present and future requirements will be by adopting the plan submitted by Mr. Smirke for the purchase of land to the north of the Museum, as contained in the report of the principal librarian.

“ ‘4. That in the opinion of the trustees, even if the increase of the collections which are under their care should at some future time make is necessary to transfer any of those collections to some other place, the land of which the purchase is now recommended must always be of great and peculiar value to the Museum.

“ ‘5. That such plan, together with the present resolutions, shall be laid before Her Majesty’s Ministers, with the view of requesting their concurrence therein, and their recommendation thereof to the consideration of Parliament.”

“IV. Presuming that few persons will be found to advocate the removal of the grand masses of ancient art from their present position, so it is manifest that, if all the Natural History Collections be taken away, their transference will afford no place for the classical works which now temporarily encumber the principle façade, or crowd the crypts below; for, as such massive objects much be placed on the ground floor, so an extension of the basement is inevitable if the antiquities remain part of the Museum, and all that the Natural History Collections can require for their future development will be an allotment of space above such extension of the ground floor.

“We would also observe that the prolongation of the present building northwards, on the abovementioned plan, besides being much less costly than the formation of an entirely new building, will put a stop to all controversies respecting the appropriate site; and the style of architecture to be applied to a new building.

“V. In reference to other suggestions that have been vaguely thrown out of the breaking up of the Natural History Collections of the nation into several parts, by transferring, e.g., the minerals, to the Government School of Mines; the stuffed animals to the Zoological Society; the insects and shells to the Linnaean Society, &c., we have first to observe that not any of the above institutions, two of which are only voluntary associations of individuals, possesses the space or means for the reception and display of such constituent parts of the great national series of illustrations of nature; and, further, that as the chief end and aim of natural history is to demonstrated the harmony which pervades the whole, and the unity of principle which bespeaks the unity of the creative cause, it is essential that the different classes of natural objects should be preserved in juxtaposition under the roof of one great building.

“VI. We further strongly object to the proposed transference, because those engaged in the study of natural history have in the British Museum the paramount advantage of consulting every work which can aid their researches; while a removal of the collections would either involve a conjoint transference of a very large portion of the national library, or necessitate a very expensive purchase of a special natural history library.

“VII. While such are among the prominent reasons against the removal of the Natural History Collections from the site where they have been established for upwards of a century in the centre of London, we beg to add the expression of our opinion, that such removal, particularly if to any situation distant from that centre, would be viewed by the mass of the inhabitants with extreme disfavor, it being a well-known fact that by far the greater number of visitors to the Museum consists of those who frequent the halls containing the Natural History Collections; while it is obvious that many of those persons who come from the densely peopled districts of the eastern, northern, and southern parts of London would feel it very inconvenient to resort to any distant locality.

“For these reasons, as based on scientific advantages, the convenience and instruction of the people and the saving of a large sum to the nation, we earnestly hope that the Natural History Collections may not be interfered with, but be allowed to remain associated with the many other branches of human knowledge which are so admirably represented in this great national establishment.

“Her Majesty’s Government, we trust, will never yield to the argument that, because in some countries the products of nature and art are exhibited in distinct establishments, therefore the like separation should be copied here. Let us, on the contrary, rejoice in the fact that we have realized what no other kingdom can boast of, and that such vast and harmoniously-related accumulation of knowledge is gathered together around a library, illustrating each department of this noble museum.

“*Wrottesley, President Royal Society; *Rod. L. Murchison F.R.S., D.C.L., President Geographical Society; *P.M. Grey Egerton, M.P., F.R.S.; J.E. Portlock, Major-General R.E., F.R.S., &c; *Rosse, F.R.S.; C. Wheatstone, F.R.S.; G.G. Stokes, Secretary Royal Society; Thomas H. Huxley, F.R.S.; James Paget, F.R.S.; W. Sharpey, M.D., Secretary Royal Society; John P. Gassiott, F.R.S.; W. Bowman, F.R.S.; Jos. D. Hooker, F.R.S.; William B. Carpenter, F.R.S.; W. R. Grove, V.P.R.S.; Leonard Horner, V.P.R.S. and V.P.G.S.; Thomas Bell, F.R.S., President of the Linnean Society; Wm. J. Burchell, F.L.S.; S. James A. Salter, F.L.S., F.G.S.; Wilfred D. Speer, F.L.S.; John Lindley, F.R.S.; Richard Owen, V.P.R.S., Superintendent Natural History Departments, British Museum; John Barlow, F.R.S., Vice-President and Secretary Royal Institution; Robert M’Andrew, F.R.S., F.L.S.; George Rennie, F.R.S., F.G.S., &c.: William Hopkins, F.R.S., F.G.S., and M.A.; J. G. Bowerbank, F.R.S., F.L.S., &c.; Thomas Graham, F.R.S., Master of the Mint; John Marshall, F.G.S.; *B. C. Brodle, F.R.S., D.C.L.; A. W. Hofmann, LL.D., F.R.S.; *T. Mayo , F.R.S., President of the Royal College of Physicians; Charles Lyell, F.R.S., D.C.L., F.G.S.,; Andrew C. Ramsay, F.R.S., F.G.S.; William Henry Fitton, F.R.S., F.G.S.; H. Falconer, M.D., F.R.S., L.S., and G.S.; J. Crawford, F.R.S., F.G.S., John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S.; John Tyndall, F.R.S., Professor, &c; John Phillips, M.A., LL.D., President of the Geological Society, F.R.S.; John Prestwich, F.R.S., F.G.S.; Thomas Davidson, F.R.S., G.S.; Robert G. Austen, F.R.S., G.S.; Alfred Tylor, F.G.S.; Robert William Mylne, F.G.S.; Warrington W. Smyth, Secretary Geological Society, F.R.S.; Thomas Sopwith, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S.; Selkirk, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S.; J. J. Bigsby, M.D., F.G.S.; Robert Kane, Knight, M.D., F.R.S., Director of the Museum of Irish Industry; *Cawdor, F.R.S., F.G.S.; Baden Powell, F.R.S., Professor of Geometry Oxford; Charles Frederick White, M.M.S.; James Glaisher, F.R.S., &c.; M. Marshall, F.Z.S., Bank of England; Robert Warington, F.C.S., M.M.S.; J. George Appold, F.R.S.; John Birkett, F.R.E.G., England, F.L.S., &c.; John Quekett, F.L.S., M.R.C.S.E., &c.; Conrad Loddiges, F.H.S.; Henry Christy, F.S.S.; J. Claude Webster, F.S.A., Middle Temple; E. W. Cooke, A.R.A., F.L.S.; Ducie, F.R.S., F.G.S.; John Morris, F.G.S., and Professor of Geology, University College, London; Edward Sabine, Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal Society; William Whewell, D.D., F.R.S., Master of Trinity College; G. W. Featherstonhaugh, F.R.S., F.G.S.; Robert Hunt, F.R.S.; Enniskillen, F.R.S., &c.; R. G. Latham, M.D., F.R.S.; W. J. Broderip, F.R.S., F.G.S., P.L.S.; J. E. Gray, F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., President of the Entomological and Botanical Societies of London, &c., Keeper of Zoology, British Museum; George R. Waterhouse, Keeper of Geology, British Museum; Nevil Story Maskelyne, F.G.S., Keeper of Mineralogy, British Museum; J. Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S.; John Miers, F.R.S., F.L.S.; John Hogg, F.R.S., F.L.S., &c.; Samuel Stevens, F.L.S., Treasurer of Entomological Society; John S. Gaskoin, F.L.S.; D. W. Mitchell, Secretary to the Zoological Society of London, F.L.S., &c.; Philip Lutley Sclater, F.L.S., M.A. Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford; George Busk, F.R.S., F.R.C.S.E., &c.; W. Macdonald, M.D.; E. W. H. Holdsworth, F.L.S., F.Z.S.; John J. Bennett, F.R.S.L.S.; John Percy, M.D., F.R.S.; M. Henderson, M.D., F.H.S.; John Carrick Moore, M.A., F.R.S.; John Gould, F.R.S.; Robert Stephenson, M.P., F.R.S.; George Peacock, Dean of Ely., F.R.S.; Charles Darwin, F.R.S., &c.; J. F. W. Herschel, M.A., D.C.L., F.R.S., London and Edinburgh; Adam Sedgwick, M.A., F.R.S., Woodwardian Professor, Cambridge; W. H. Miller, M.A., F.R.S., Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Cambridge; Charles C. Babington, M.A., F.R.S., Cambridge; G. D. Living, M.A., Lecturer on Natural Sciences, St. John’s College, Cambridge; William Clark, M.A., F.R.S., Professor of Anatomy, Cambridge; Charles Daubeny, M.D., F.R.S., Professor of Botany, Oxford; Henry W. Acland, M.D., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Medicine, Oxford; John R. Mummery, F.L.S.; Nathaniel Ward, F.R.S., F.L.S.; Stephen H. Ward, M.D., London; Richard King, M.D.; Bedford Pym, R.N., F.R.G.S.; Francis Walker, F.G.S. and L.S.; Edward Newman, F.L.S.; John A. Power, M.D., F.R.G.S.; John Douglas, F.L.S.; H. T. Staunton, F.L.S., &c.

“This document, signed by so many distinguished men of science, including the Presidents of the chief scientific societies, was, indeed, in the course of the autumn of 1858, followed by another, signed by eight leading naturalists, three of whom had given their names to the previous memorial. They asked for a reorganization of the Natural History Collections, and with that a distinct administration of them. But, though they adverted to the then prevalent report, that the collections were to be transferred to ‘another locality,’ the prayer of their memorial might in all essential respects be fully complied with if the collections were to remain where they are.

“Recently a special general meeting of the trustees was called to receive a report prepared by a sub-committee appointed to ascertain the relative expense of erecting such buildings as would embrace all that the eminent Superintendent of the Natural History Department considered requisite for the different collections under his supervision. The comparison was instituted between the expense of adding to the present Museum to the extent of five acres, and the cost of erecting a new museum of similar extent on the only easily obtained ground, which is situated on the southwestern extremity of the land at Kensington-gore, purchased by the Royal Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851.

“It has been recently stated in the House of Commons that on that occasion, when 17 trustees were present, the vote in favour of the removal of the Natural History Collections in Kensington was carried by a majority of one only; and, as it was further stated that six Cabinet Ministers voted in that majority, it follows that the trustees, who are really charged with the managements of the Museum, and who may be asserted to have the interests of the collections most vividly present to their minds, constituted the minority. It was, in fact, made a question of expenditure as balanced against the true interests of science.

“Members of the Government probably may think more of the relative importance to the country which 150,000l., or even 200,000l., may represent than of the removal to a suburban district of the departments of Natural History. But the trustees who voted in the minority certainly represented the feelings of men of science, and also, we believe, of a large metropolitan public, when they considered that a central position in London, propinquity to the great national library, and the maintenance in the eye of the public in the middle, as it were, of their daily paths, of our noble collections of natural history, was of more importance for that public than the sum of money to which the interests of science were to be postponed.

“But even the argument drawn from economy, which is the main argument that has been ostensibly put forward, loses much of its importance when critically investigated.

“It is doubtless true that the purchase of land covered with houses at Bloomsbury must involve a large outlay than the acquisition of a similar extent of grass land at Kensington; but, on the other hand, it is to be borne in mind that the purchase of the latter and the cost of the new building must both be paid for at once or in the ensuing three or four years, whereas the extension hitherto contemplated by the trustees around the Museum involves only a gradual acquisition of the ground, and consequently an expenditure extending over many years. The design for such an extension and for the buildings contemplated in it would, indeed, be formed on a complete and comprehensive plan, but all that would be necessary for the present towards carrying that plan out would consist in the securing the ultimate reversion of the land, and in the purchase for immediate requirements of a comparatively small number of leases. The fortunate circumstance that the land required is all the property of one nobleman would doubtless render the ultimate acquisition of the reversion of it by the British Museum a simple negotiation.

“Furthermore, the expense of removal and the risk of injury to the collections, no less than the years that must ensue during which no relief can be afforded to the existing establishment-years during which the façade must remain encumbered, as it now is, with the antiquities of Halicarnassus¹²,—are no light arguments against the project of breaking up the establishment. When to these considerations is added the additional expense involved in the formation of a scientific library—to say nothing of the costliness of the façade of a new building, —assuredly the gradual though systematic extension of the British Museum northwards for the natural history, and westward for the antiquities, the uninterrupted exhibition to the public of the collections even while that extension is going forward, and the profound conviction on the part of so many men of science that the welfare of science is involved in this extension, are arguments to which an economy of a few tens of thousands is no answer.

“Undoubtedly the multitudes who inhabit the more densely populated regions of the metropolis—so large a fraction of the British nation—would share in the disappointment of scientific men at the removal of the Natural History Collections from a spot so near to the centre of the great metropolitan area, to the western extremity of the Kensington grounds, where the entrance to the new museum would be nearly half a mile beyond the existing South Kensington¹³ or Brompton Museum.

“The complaint that the British Museum presents now a confused medley of heterogeneous collections, even if it were just, would be a very different thing from declaring the advisability of separating those collections by the whole length of the radius of London. But the public, whose interests are in fact most deeply concerned, will probably prefer the middle course, and will concur with the sentiments above expressed in favour of separation without removal,—of a distinct administrative separation of the three great series of collections, the Natural History, the Antiquarian, and the Bibliographical, so that each may form a department entire in itself, but contiguous to the others, the great Reading-room and Library forming the nucleus and centre of union for the whole. The British Museum will then still remain the rich storehouse of knowledge, to be read in books and to be illustrated by collections, which has hitherto made it an unique institution, of which every Englishman feels he may be proud, and to which every foreign traveler bends his steps, as giving him at once a general view of the intelligence, enterprise, and practical sense of this nation.

“March 29.”

John Tyndall et. al, ‘THE BRITISH MUSEUM’, The Times, 23592 (12 April 1860) p. 10.