THIRTY-THIRD CONGRESS, 1853-1855. 569 



the conditional bequest by an individual of property less in amount 

 than the bequest of Smithson. It has since received some two millions 

 of pounds sterling of the public funds. 



AVithin the last twenty 3^ears there have been two select committees 

 of the House of Commons and one royal commission appointed to 

 inquire into the condition, management, and affairs of this institution. 



Its government is vested in a board of trustees, in number 48, one 

 of whom (His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge) is directly 

 named by the Crown, 23 are regents ex officio, 9 are named by the 

 representatives or executors of parties who have teen donors to the 

 institution, and 15 are elected. 



The following is a list of the trustees: 



Ex officio. — The archbishop of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, the speaker of the 

 House of Commons, principal trustees; the president of the council, the first lord 

 of the treasury, the lord privy seal, the first lord of the Admiralty, the lord steward, 

 the lord chamberlain, the colonial secretary of state, the foreign secretary of state, 

 the home secretary of state, the bishop of London, the chancellor of the exchequer, 

 the lord chief justice of the Queen's bench, the lord chief justice of the common 

 pleas, the master of the rolls, the attorney-general, the solicitor-general, the presi- 

 dent of the Royal Society, the president of the College of Physicians, the president 

 of the Society of Antiquaries, the president of the Royal Academy. 



Family trustees. — The Earl of Cadogan, Lord Stanley, Sloane family; George Booth 

 Tyndale, esq., Rev. Francis Annesley, Cotton family; Lord H. W. Bentinck, the 

 Earl of Cawdor, Harlein family; Charles Townley, esq., Townley family; the Earl 

 of Elgin, Elgin family; John Knight, esq.. Knight family. 



Elected trustees. — The Earl of Aberdeen; the Earl of Derby; the Duke of Rutland; 

 the Marquis of Lansdowne; Sir Robert Peel, Bart.; the Duke of Hamilton; Sir 

 Robert H. Inglis, Bart.; Henry Hallam, esq.; William R. Hamilton, esq.; the Duke 

 of Sutherland; the Right Hon. T. B. Macaulay; William Buckland, D. D., dean of 

 Westminster; the Right Hon. Sir David Dundas; the Right Hon. H. Goulburn; the 

 Marquis of Northampton. 



Complaints against the management of the institution became so 

 prevalent that, notwithstanding the mighty array of elevated function- 

 aries and illustrious literar}^ and scientific persons behind which it was 

 intrenched, it became necessary for the House of Commons to turn its 

 attention to it. 



On the 27th of March, 1835, it was ordered in the House of Com- 

 mons "that a select committee be appointed to inquire into the con- 

 dition, management, and affairs of the British Museum," with power 

 to send for persons and papers. The committee consisted of thirty- 

 three, including many of the leading men of the House, 



The committee held nineteen meetings, and on the 6th of August, 

 1835, reported a mass of testimony making a folio volume of 623 pages. 



On the 11th of February, 1836, the subject was again taken up, and 

 became the occasion of a debate. Among other complaints made by 

 members, it was affirmed that the statement made by Sir Humphry 

 Davy was correct "that the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord chau- 



