478 Mr. Charles Welch [Jan. 25, 



Tlie Guildhall Museum. 



I must now turn to the history of the Museum. Within two 

 years of the date of the resohition estabhshing the second Guildhall 

 Library, the Corporation decided by a resolution on January 19, 

 1826, to create a Museum of London Antiquities. The time was 

 happily chosen, for a few ensuing years were to witness the com- 

 mencement of a series of great public works, such as the re-building 

 of London Bridge, the erection of the new Royal Exchange, and 

 the construction of railway termini and great public thoroughfares, 

 which completely transformed ancient London, and brought to light 

 numerous and most interesting remains of former periods. The 

 union of the Library and Museum under one roof from their 

 earliest days has loroved a great benefit to both institutions. Works 

 of reference in a Library, and specimens in a Museum, furnish a 

 mutual illustration which can only be appreciated when the books 

 and the antiquities are housed in the same building. There has, 

 however, been a marked but quite natural difference in the develop- 

 ment of the sister institutions. The Library, though at first limited 

 to books relating to the City of London, has long since outgrown the 

 restriction. The Museum, on the other hand, has, with some slight 

 exceptions, always maintained a strictly local character. Neither the 

 space nor the funds at the disposal of the Library Committee 

 justified the establishment of a museum of a general character. And 

 even if such an experiment had been made, it would have been wanting 

 in the peculiar charm attaching to a collection which centres upon 

 a single subject. As now arranged, the Museum displays a historic 

 symmetry amid a wide variety of objects, illustrating the fortunes 

 and changes of this ancient City and its people from a remote 

 past to the living present. 



The earliest objects contributed to the Museum were some speci- 

 mens of pottery and other remains, principally of the Roman period, 

 discovered in digging the foundations for the General Post Office and 

 new London Bridge, and during the demolition of Guildhall Chapel. 

 On March 26, 1846, the Committee reported that the ante-room 

 of the Library had been fitted up as a museum, and that a large 

 collection of Roman antiquities, found during the excavations for the 

 new Royal Exchange in 1841, had been presented by the Royal 

 Exchange and Gresham Trusts Committee. These were arranged 

 by Mr. Thomson, Librarian of the London Institution, and a cata- 

 logue of them prepared by Mr., afterwards Sir, William Tite, was 

 printed in 1848. In 1S50, Mr. H. B. Hanbury Beaufoy, F.R.S., pre- 

 sented a valualjle collection of seventeenth century tradesmen's 

 tokens, relating to London, Westminster, and Southwark. The Com- 

 mittee engaged the services of Mr. J. H. Burn to make a catalogue. 



