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HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
The valuable collection of manuscripts formed by Sir Eobert 
Cotton at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seven- 
teenth centuries was already the property of the nation, having 
been presented by his grandson, Sir John Cotton, in the year 
1700. The Harley Collection was obtained by purchase at 
the same time as the Sloane, and the three were brought 
together under the designation of " the British Museum," placed 
under the care of a body of Trustees,* and lodged in Montagu 
House, Bloomsbury, purchased for their reception in 1754. The 
Museum was opened to the public on the 15th of January, 1759. 
Admission to the galleries of antiquities and natural history was 
at first by ticket only on application in writing, and limited to 
ten persons, for three hours in the day. In place of being 
allowed to inspect the cases at their leisure, visitors were con- 
ducted through the galleries by officers of the house. The hours of 
admission were subsequently extended ; but it was not until the 
year 1810 that the Museum was freely accessible to the general 
public for three days in the week, from ten to four o'clock. 
The present daily opening, with longer hours in summer, dates 
only from 1879. 
At the time of the foundation of the Museum, the site allotted 
seemed amply sufficient for its purposes ; but gradually, as the 
collections of all kinds increased, they outgrew the limits, 
not only of the original Montagu House, but even of its 
successor, the present classical building, completed in 1845 
from the designs of Sir Eobert Smirke. The erection of the 
magnificent reading-room in 1857 disposed for a time of the 
difficulty of finding accommodation for the ever-growing library ; 
but the keepers of other departments continued urgent in their 
demands for more space, and after much discussion of rival 
plans for keeping the collections together and obtaining the 
* The Trustees under the Act of Incorporation were the Archbishop of 
Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the 
Bishop of London, and the principal Officers of State for the time heing ; six 
representatives of Founders' families ; the Presidents of the Royal Society 
and College of Physicians ; and fifteen other Trustees to be elected by them, 
Subsequeutly, the Presidents of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal 
Academy of Arts, a Trustee by special nomination of the Sovereign, and three 
more family Trustees were added to the Board. 
