424 



NA TURE 



[Sept. I, 1 88 1 



Sir H. A. Hunt had previously formed an estimate of cost for 

 the Chancellor of the Exchequer on inspection of the Report 

 and plan in the Parliamentary paper of March, 1859. The 

 letter to which I refer I regard as an antidote to some previous 

 quotations from adverse members of Parliament. 



The working plans of Sir Henry A. Hunt ^^ere subsequently 

 submitted for competition, and the designs of the accomplished 

 and lamented Capt. Fowke, R.E., obtained the award m 1S64. 

 His untimely death arrested further progress or practical appli- 

 cation of the prize designs. 



In 1867 Lord Elcho pressed upon the House of Commons, 

 through the Hungerford Bridge Committee, the Thames Em- 

 bankment as a site for the New Museum of Natural History, but 

 unsuccessfully. The debates thereon, nevertheless, caused some 

 further delay. 



In 1871 a vote of 40,000/. for beginning the Museum Build- 

 ings at South Kensington was carried without discussion. In 

 1872 a vote of 29,000/. for the same building was opposed by 

 Lord Elcho, but was carried by a majority of 40 (85 against 45). 

 On the demise of Capt. Fowke Mr. Alfred Waterhonse was 

 selected as architect. He accepted the general plans which had 

 been sanctioned and approved by Sir H. A. Hunt and by Capt. 

 Fowke, and I took the liberty to suggest, as I had previously 

 done to Capt. Fowke, that many objects of natural histcry might 

 afford subjects for architectural ornament ; and at Mr. Water- 

 house's request I transmitted numerous figures of such as seemed 

 suitable for that purpose. I shall presently refer to the beauti- 

 ful and appropriate style of architecture which Mr. W.alerhouse 

 selected for this building, but am tempted to premise a brief 

 sketch of what I may call the "Genealogy of the British 

 Museum," or what some of my fellow labourers, agreeably with 

 the actual phase of our science, may prefer to call its " Phylogeny ." 

 Sir Hans Sloane, M.D., after a lucrative practice of h's 

 profession in the then flourishing colony of Jamaica, finally 

 settled at Chelsea, and there accumulated a notable museum of 

 natural history, antiquities, medals, cameos, &c., besides a 

 library of 50,000 volumes, including about 350 portfolios of draw- 

 ings, 3500 manuscripts, and a multitude of prints. These speci- 

 mens were specified in a MS. catalogue of thirty-eight volumes 

 in folio, and eight volumes in quarto. Sir Hans valued this col- 

 lection at the sum of 80,000/. ; but at his death, in 1753, it was 

 found that he had directed in his "Will " that the whole should be 

 offered to Parliament for the use of the public on payment of a 

 minor sum, in compensation to his heirs. This offer being sub- 

 mitted to the House of Commons, it was agreed to pay 20,000/. 

 for the whole. At the same time the purchase of the Coltonian 

 Library and of the Hafleian MSS. was included in the Bill.^ 

 The following .are the terms of the enactment : — 

 Act 26, George JL, Cap. 22 (1753). — Sections IX. ana X. 

 "(IX.) And it be enacted by the authority aforesaid, that 

 within the cities of London or Westminster or the suburbs 

 thereol, one general repository shall be erected or provided in 

 such convenient place and in such manner as the trustees hereby 

 appointed, or the major part of them, at a general meeting 

 assemi led, shall dirtct for the reception not only of the said 

 museum or collection of Sir Hans Sloane, but also of the Colto- 

 nian Library and of the additions which have been or shall be 

 made thereunto by virtue of the last will and testament of the 

 said Arthur Edwards, and likewise of the said Harleian col- 

 lection of manuscripts and of such other additions to the 

 Cottonian Library as, with the approbation of the trustees by 

 this Act appointed, or the major part of them, at a general 

 meeting assembled, shall be made thereunto in manner herein- 

 after mentioned, and of such other collections and libraries as, 

 with the like approbation, shall be admitted into the said general 

 repository, which several collections, additions, and library so 

 received into the said general repository shall remain and be 

 preserved therein for public use to all posterity. 



" (X.) Provided always that the said museum or collection of 

 Sir Hans Sloane, in all its branches, shall be kept and preserved 

 together in the said general repository whole and entire, and 

 with proper marks of distinction." 



^ In his letter of February 14, 1753, to his friend Mann, Horace Walpole, 

 then Member for Lynn, writes: — " You will scarce guess how I employ my 

 time, chiefly at present in the guardianship of embryos and cockle-shells. 

 Sir Hans Sluane is dead, and has made me one of the trustees of his 

 museum, which is to be offered for twenty-thousand pounds to the Kirii; and 

 Parliament and (in default of acceptance) to the Royal Academics of 

 Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, and Madrid. He valued it at four-score thousand, 

 and so would any one who loves hippopotamuses, sharks with one ear, and 

 spiders as big as geese. The king has excused himself, saying he did n. t 

 think that there were twenty thousand pounds in the Treasuiy." — "Letter 

 to Horace Mann,*' Svo, vol. iv. p. 32. 



The trustees appointed under the Act are of four classes : 

 Royal, Official, Family, and Elected. The first class includes 

 one trustee appointed by the Sovereign ; the second class includes 

 the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord High Chancellor, 

 the Speaker of the House of Commons, and twenty-two other 

 high officials and presidents of societies. The three first in this 

 class are designated " Principal Trustees," and in them is vested 

 the patronage or appointment to every salaried office save one 

 in the British Museum ; the exception being the Principal Libra- 

 rian, who is appointed by the .Sovereign. Of the Family Trus- 

 tees, the Sloane collections are now represented by the Earl of 

 Derby and the Earl of Cadogan, the Cottonian Library by the 

 Rev. Francis Annesley and the Rev. Francis Hanbury Annesley, 

 the Harleian manuscripts by Lord Henry, C. G. Gordon- 

 Lennox, M.P., and by the Right Hon. George A. F. Cavendish 

 Bentinck, M.P. Among the Elected Trustees the honoured 

 name of Walpole, associated with the origin of the British 

 Museum, is continued by the Right Hon. Spencer Horatio 

 Walpole, M.P., to whom the requisite Parliamentary business 

 of the Museum is usually confided. 



I may call attention to " the suburbs of London or Westmin- 

 ster " as one of the localities specified in the original Act of Par- 

 liament, and such situation was selected for the locality of the 

 Library and the Museum. The Government issued lottery- 

 tickets to the amount of 300,000/., out of the profits of which 

 the 20,coo/. for the Sloanian Museum was paid and purchase 

 made of a suitable building, with contiguous grounds for its 

 reception and the lodgment of keepers. 



To the north of the metropolis, about midway between the 

 two cities of London and Westminster, there stood, in 1753, an 

 ancient famdy mansion called Montague House. This is defined 

 by Smollet in his " History of England " as "one of the most 

 magnificent edifices in England." ' Its style of architecture was 

 that of the Tuilleries in Paris. From London it was .shut off by 

 a lofty brick wall, in the middle of which was a large orna- 

 mental gateway and lodge, through which, in my earlier years 

 as a student of natural history, I have often passed to inspect, 

 through the kindness of the then keepers of mineralogy and 

 zoology, and make notes on, the Sloanian and subsequently-added 

 rarities. 



To the north of Montague House were the extensive gardens, 

 beyond which stretched away a sylvan scene to the slopes of 

 Highgate and Ilampstead Hills. 



The original location of the British Museum w as more apart 

 and remote from the actual metropolis and less easy of access 

 than is the present Museum of Natural History at the West 

 End. 



The additions to the natural history series, which accrued from 

 1753 to 1833, together with the growth of other departments, 

 necessitated provision of corresponding conservative and exhibi- 

 tion spaces. These were acquired by the erection, on the site 

 of Montague House, of the present British Museum, the architect, 

 Sir Sidney Smirke, adopting the Ionic Greek style. 



The extent of space afforded by this edifice in comparison with 

 that of its predecessor was such as to engender a conviclion that 

 it would suffice for all subsequent additions. The difficulty in 

 our finite nature and limited capacity of looking forward is 

 exemplified in such names as New College at Oxford, Newcastle, 

 New Street, New Bridge, &c., as if nothing was ever to grow 

 old; and the same restricted power of outlook affects our pre- 

 vision of requirements of space for ever-growing collections. 



The Printed Book Department, w hich took the lion's share of 

 the then new British Mu.'eum, found itself compelled in the 

 course of one generation to appropriate the quadrangle left by 

 Smirke in order to admit light to the w indows of the galleries, 

 looking that way or inwards. 



From analogy I foresee that some successor of mine may 

 exemplify human short-sightedness in my limit of demand to eight 

 acres for the growth of the present Museum. 



However, these acres, after conflicts stretching over a score or 

 more of years, have at last been acquired for due display and 

 facilities of study of the subjects of Section D. 



Amongst the works of architectural art which adorn the 

 metropolis, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral stand 

 supreme. Of later additions may w ith them be named the noble 

 example of the Perpendicular Gothic selected by Barry for the 

 Houses of Parliament, and, 1 may be permitted to add, the new 

 Law Courts, which exemplify the more severe style of the 

 Thirteenth-century Gothic. 



' Ed. 1825, p. 332. 



