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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 
mens, and an extensive herbarium of dried plants preserved in 
310 large folio volumes. 
According to the terms of Sir Hans Sloane's will, this collect 
tion was purchased for the sum of £20,000, far below its 
intrinsic value, in order " that it might be preserved and 
maintained, not only for the inspection and entertainment of 
the learned and the curious, but for the general use and benefit 
of the public to all posterity." 
The valuable collection of manuscripts formed by Sir Robert 
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 Harleian Collection was obtained by purchase at 
the same time as the Sloanian, and the three were brought 
together under the designation of " the British Museum," placed 
Montagu under the care of a body of trustees,* and lodged in Montagu 
Bloomsbury. 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 each of three hours in the day. Visitors were not 
allowed to inspect the cases at their leisure, but were conducted 
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 
* 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 being ; six 
representatives of Founders' families : the Presidents of the Royal Society 
and College of Physicians ; and fifteen other Trustees to be elected by them. 
Subsequently, 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. 
