82 
HISTORICAL SKETCH. 
Growth of 
Collections 
necessitating 
additional 
space. 
Resolution to 
separate 
Natural 
History 
Collection. 
Purchase of a 
Site at South 
Kensington. 
Competitive 
designs. 
Captain 
Fowke's plan, 
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 Kobert 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 
needful extension of room by acquiring the property immediately 
around the old Museum, or for severing the collections and 
removing a portion to another building, the latter course was 
finally decided upon. At a special general meeting of the 
Trustees, held on the 21st of January, 1860, attended by many 
members of the Government in their official capacity, a resolu- 
tion, moved by the First Lord of the Treasury, was carried 
" That it is expedient that the l^atural History Collection be 
removed from the British Museum, inasmuch as such an arrange- 
ment would be attended with considerably less expense than would 
be incurred by providing a sufficient additional space in immediate 
contiguity to the present building of the British Museum." 
The House of Commons, in the Session of 1863, sanctioned 
the purchase of part of the site of the International Exhibition 
of 1862 at South Kensington, with a view to appropriating it to 
the purpose of a Museum of Natural History. 
In January, 1864, the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Works 
issued an advertisement for designs for a Natural History 
Museum and a Patent Museum, to be erected on part of the land 
thus acquired, a plan which had been prepared by Mr. Hunt in 
September, 1862, from Sir Eichard Owen's suggestions, being 
proposed as a model in respect to dimensions and internal 
arrangement. 
The plans of the various competitors were submitted to Her 
Majesty's Commissioners of Works, who awarded prizes to three 
of the number, giving precedence to that of Captain Francis 
Fowke, liE., and then referred the three premiated plans to the 
Trustees of the British Museum. As the internal arrangements 
in (JajDtain Fowke's plan did not meet with the approval of the 
Museum officers, lie was desired to modify them in conformity 
