The British Museum, in the Bloomsbury area of London, United Kingdom, is a public institution dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its permanent collection of some eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence, having been widely sourced during the era of the British Empire. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. It was the first public national museum in the world. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. It first opened to the public in 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building.
Introduction
British Museum
British Museum | Introduction
Bloomsbury area of London, United Kingdom Bloomsbury area of London, United Kingdom. In the Bloomsbury area of London, United Kingdom It is located in the "Bloomsbury" area of London, United Kingdom.
what advantages does england seem to have to start the industrial revolution
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It transformed  its society into the world's first industrialised nation.
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which age can its history be traced back to?
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780,000 years ago
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what are some of the rivers found in this country?
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Thames, Mersey, Tyne, Severn etc
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any well-known museums here?
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London's British Museum
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where is this museum located?
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The British Museum is a museum of human culture and history located in Bloomsbury, London. British Museum may also refer to:
British Museum (disambiguation) | Introduction
The British Museum, in the Bloomsbury area of London, United Kingdom, is a public institution dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its permanent collection of some eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence, having been widely sourced during the era of the British Empire. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. It was the first public national museum in the world. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. It first opened to the public in 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building.
British Museum | Introduction
The Museum of London documents the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times and is located in the City of London on the London Wall, close to the Barbican Centre and is part of the Barbican complex of buildings created in the 1960s and 1970s to redevelop a bomb-damaged area of the City. The museum is a few minutes' walk north of St Paul's Cathedral, overlooking the remains of the Roman city wall and on the edge of the oldest part of London, now its main financial district. It is primarily concerned with the social history of London and its inhabitants throughout time.
Museum of London | Introduction
The museum is adjacent to the Natural History Museum and used to be connected to it by a public corridor, which is now closed. The closest London Underground station is South Kensington; a subway connects the museums to the station. At the front of the museum to the east is Exhibition Road. Immediately to the south is Museum Lane and the Natural History Museum. To the rear is Queen's Gate and to the north is Imperial College.
Science Museum, London | Location
Today the museum no longer houses collections of natural history, and the books and manuscripts it once held now form part of the independent British Library. The museum nevertheless preserves its universality in its collections of artefacts representing the cultures of the world, ancient and modern. The original 1753 collection has grown to over 13 million objects at the British Museum, 70 million at the Natural History Museum and 150 million at the British Library. The Round Reading Room, which was designed by the architect Sydney Smirke, opened in 1857. For almost 150 years researchers came here to consult the museum's vast library.
British Museum | The British Museum today
Most of the Department of Asia is located in the King Edward's Building, which forms the northern section of the museum. It is split into several rooms and four main geographic areas:
British Museum Department of Asia | The layout and collections of the department
John added a concern of his own: to inform the British of the outstanding achievements in these arts and crafts … There is a shade of difference here between myself as prospective museum exhibitor and John as educator and promoter of Anglo-American understanding. Both motivations merged in the outcome.” The American Museum in Britain is housed in Claverton Manor, on the outskirts of Bath. The museum opened to the public in July 1961 and in 2011 celebrated its 50th-anniversary with an exhibition of Marilyn Monroe’s dresses and artefacts from the David Gainsborough Roberts’ Collection.
Dallas Pratt | The American Museum in Britain
For details of museums in the United Kingdom, see:
List of museums in the United Kingdom | Introduction
The British Museum, in the Bloomsbury area of London, United Kingdom, is a public institution dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its permanent collection of some eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence, having been widely sourced during the era of the British Empire. It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. It was the first public national museum in the world.
List of Independent Research Organisations in the United Kingdom | British Museum
Museum London is an art and history museum located in London, Ontario, Canada, and for more than 70 years has preserved, interpreted and shared the story of London and Londoners. The museum is located near the forks of the Thames River, situated within the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Attawandaron (Neutral), and Wendat peoples and the homeland of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, Oneida Nation of the Thames, and Munsee Delaware Nation. It started its operations in 1940 with London Public Library and amalgamated with London Regional Art Gallery and London Regional Historical Museum in 1989. The current building is designed by Raymond Moriyama, architect of Science North in Greater Sudbury, the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto and the National Museum of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh.
Museum London | Introduction
A particular highlight are the three Sámi drums from northern Sweden of which only about 70 are extant. Objects from the Department of Prehistory and Europe are mostly found on the upper floor of the museum, with a suite of galleries numbered from 38 to 51. Most of the collection is stored in its archive facilities, where it is available for research and study.
British Museum | Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory
The national gallery of British art is at Tate Britain, originally established as an annexe of the National Gallery in 1897. The Tate Gallery, as it was formerly known, also became a major centre for modern art; in 2000, this collection moved to Tate Modern, a new gallery housed in the former Bankside Power Station, which was built by the Basel-based architecture firm of Herzog & de Meuron.
London | Museums, art galleries and libraries
London is home to many museums, galleries, and other institutions, many of which are free of admission charges and are major tourist attractions as well as playing a research role. The first of these to be established was the British Museum in Bloomsbury, in 1753. Originally containing antiquities, natural history specimens, and the national library, the museum now has 7 million artefacts from around the globe. In 1824, the National Gallery was founded to house the British national collection of Western paintings; this now occupies a prominent position in Trafalgar Square. The British Library is one of the largest libraries in the world, and the national library of the United Kingdom.
London | Museums, art galleries and libraries
The opening of the forecourt in 1852 marked the completion of Robert Smirke's 1823 plan, but already adjustments were having to be made to cope with the unforeseen growth of the collections. Infill galleries were constructed for Assyrian sculptures and Sydney Smirke's Round Reading Room, with space for a million books, opened in 1857. Because of continued pressure on space the decision was taken to move natural history to a new building in South Kensington, which would later become the British Museum of Natural History. Roughly contemporary with the construction of the new building was the career of a man sometimes called the "second founder" of the British Museum, the Italian librarian Anthony Panizzi.
British Museum | Collecting from the wider world (1850–1875)
In the latter half of the nineteenth century the locale of South Kensington was developed as "Albertopolis", a cultural and scientific quarter. Three major national museums are located there: the Victoria and Albert Museum (for the applied and Decorative arts), the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. The national gallery of British art is at Tate Britain, originally established as an annexe of the National Gallery in 1897. The Tate Gallery, as it was formerly known, also became a major centre for modern art; in 2000 this collection moved to Tate Modern, a new gallery housed in the former Bankside Power Station.
Culture of London | Museums and art galleries
The museum became a construction site as Sir Robert Smirke's grand neo-classical building gradually arose. The King's Library, on the ground floor of the East Wing, was handed over in 1827, and was described as one of the finest rooms in London. Although it was not fully open to the general public until 1857, special openings were arranged during The Great Exhibition of 1851. In 1840, the museum became involved in its first overseas excavations, Charles Fellows's expedition to Xanthos, in Asia Minor, whence came remains of the tombs of the rulers of ancient Lycia, among them the Nereid and Payava monuments.
British Museum | The largest building site in Europe (1825–1850)
The body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the site now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost and the unsuitability of its location. With the acquisition of Montagu House, the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. At this time, the largest parts of collection were the library, which took up the majority of the rooms on the ground floor of Montagu House, and the natural history objects, which took up an entire wing on the second state storey of the building.
British Museum | Cabinet of curiosities (1753–1778)
The only vacant space for this large library was a room originally intended for manuscripts, between the Front Entrance Hall and the Manuscript Saloon. The books remained here until the British Library moved to St Pancras in 1998.
British Museum | The largest building site in Europe (1825–1850)
Its expansion over the following 250 years was largely a result of expanding British colonisation and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the Natural History Museum in 1881. In 1973, the British Library Act 1972 detached the library department from the British Museum, but it continued to host the now separated British Library in the same Reading Room and building as the museum until 1997. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and as with all national museums in the UK it charges no admission fee, except for loan exhibitions.
British Museum | Introduction
Museum Mile London is the home of 14 museums in London, England, in the area between Bloomsbury to the north and the Embankment on the River Thames to the south. You can do everything from discovering Egyptian mummies to driving a Tube train. The area is located in the London Borough of Camden. The route includes Woburn Place, Russell Square, Southampton Row, Kingsway, and the Aldwych. The museums and related cultural institutions with collections that are included are:
Museum Mile, London | Introduction
British Museum was a station on the London Underground, located in Holborn, central London. It was latterly served by the Central line and took its name from the nearby British Museum in Great Russell Street. The station was opened by the Central London Railway in 1900. In 1933, with the expansion of Holborn station, less than 100 yards away, British Museum station was permanently closed. It was subsequently utilised as a military office and command post, but in 1989 the surface building was demolished. A portion of the eastbound tunnel is used to store materials for track maintenance, visible from passing trains.
British Museum tube station | Introduction
"Department of the Middle East" "Department of Greece and Rome"
British Museum | Galleries
The British Museum, which first opened to the public in 1759 in Montagu House, is at the heart of Bloomsbury. At the centre of the museum the space around the former British Library Reading Room, which was filled with the concrete storage bunkers of the British Library, is today the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court, an indoor square with a glass roof designed by British architect Norman Foster. It houses displays, a cinema, a shop, a cafe and a restaurant. Since 1998, the British Library has been located in a purpose-built building just outside the northern edge of Bloomsbury, in Euston Road.
Bloomsbury | Museums
British Museum, London. Catalog # AOA 6847.
Rongorongo text J | Location
The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum () was a museum in Bristol, United Kingdom exploring the history of the British Empire and the effect of British colonial rule on the rest of the world. The museum opened in 2002 and entered voluntary liquidation in 2013.
British Empire and Commonwealth Museum | Introduction
The museum has a collaboration with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the collection online.
British Museum | Digital and online
There are many other research libraries, including the Wellcome Library and Dana Centre, as well as university libraries, including the British Library of Political and Economic Science at LSE, the Central Library at Imperial, the Maughan Library at King's, and the Senate House Libraries at the University of London. In the latter half of the 19th century the locale of South Kensington was developed as "Albertopolis", a cultural and scientific quarter. Three major national museums are there: the Victoria and Albert Museum (for the applied arts), the Natural History Museum, and the Science Museum. The National Portrait Gallery was founded in 1856 to house depictions of figures from British history; its holdings now comprise the world's most extensive collection of portraits.
London | Museums, art galleries and libraries
The British Schools Museum is an educational museum based in original Edwardian and Victorian school buildings in Hitchin in Hertfordshire, England. The museum complex is made up of Grade II listed school buildings housing infants, girls and boys schools with houses for Master and Mistress. It includes a monitorial schoolroom based on the educational theories of Joseph Lancaster for 300 boys, which opened in 1837, and a rare galleried classroom, dating from 1853.
British Schools Museum | Introduction
Several of modern London's major museums were constructed during the 19th century, including the British Museum (built 1823-1852), The National Gallery (built 1832-8), the National Portrait Gallery (founded 1856), and the Tate Britain, which opened in 1897 as the National Gallery of British Art. The British Museum had been established by Act of Parliament in 1753, and housed since that time in the 17th century Montagu House in Bloomsbury. With the donation of the King's Library in 1822, which comprised some 120,000 manuscripts, pamphlets, and drawings assembled by the late George III, a major extension of the Museum was needed.
19th-century London | Museums
British Museum, London. Catalog # AOA 9295.
Rongorongo text L | Location
The British Commercial Vehicle Museum displays antiquarian buses, early fire engines and other historical and commercial vehicles produced by the British manufacturing industry. The museum is located in King Street, Leyland, Lancashire on part of a site previously occupied by the Leyland Motors factory, the source of many exhibits. Funding methods include the admission charges and membership tickets. More recently, a major investment by the Heritage Lottery Fund has contributed to a major refurbishment and website redesign by local digital agency Fertile Frog. The museum is now open throughout the year, six days per week ( see website for details ).
British Commercial Vehicle Museum | Introduction
On 7 June 1753 the British Museum Act 1753 was passed, authorising the unification of the three collections as the British Museum and establishing the national lottery to fund the purchase of the collections and to provide funds for their maintenance. The trustees settled on Montagu House in Bloomsbury as a home for the new British Museum, opening it to the public for the first time on 15 January 1759. With the British Museum now established numerous other collectors began to donate and bequeath items to the museum's collections, which were further swelled by large quantities of exhibits brought to England in 1771 by the first voyage of James Cook, by a large collection of Egyptian antiquities (including the Rosetta Stone) ceded by the French in the Capitulation of Alexandria, by the 1816 purchase of the Elgin Marbles by the British government who in turn passed them to the museum, and by the 1820 bequest of the vast botanical collections of Joseph Banks.
Ceilings of the Natural History Museum, London | Background
The Museum of London, charting the capital's history, has been located in the Barbican complex since 1976; a sister museum in the Docklands opened in 2003.
Culture of London | Museums and art galleries
In 2016, the British Museum moved its bag searches to marquees in the front courtyard and beside the rear entrance. This has been criticised by heritage groups as out-of-character with the historic building. The British Museum clarified that the change was purely logistical to save space in the main museum entrance and did not reflect any escalation in threat.
British Museum | Bag searches
London is home to over 240 museums, galleries, and other institutions, many of which are free of admission charges and are major tourist attractions as well as playing a research role. The first of these to be established was the British Museum in Bloomsbury, in 1753. Originally containing antiquities, natural history specimens and the national library, the museum now has 7 million artefacts from around the globe. Also of eighteenth-century foundation is the Royal Academy of Arts; its summer exhibition has been an annual fixture on the London social calendar since 1769. In 1824 the National Gallery was founded to house the British national collection of Western paintings; this now occupies a prominent position in Trafalgar Square.
Culture of London | Museums and art galleries
The site also includes conference facilities.
British Motor Museum | History
The British Museum Reading Room, situated in the centre of the Great Court of the British Museum, used to be the main reading room of the British Library. In 1997, this function moved to the new British Library building at St Pancras, London, but the Reading Room remains in its original form at the British Museum. Designed by Sydney Smirke and opened in 1857, the Reading Room was in continual use until its temporary closure for renovation in 1997. It was reopened in 2000, and from 2007 to 2017 it was used to stage temporary exhibitions. It has since been closed while its future use remains under discussion.
British Museum Reading Room | Introduction
The museum is situated in the King's Cross area of London, on the Regent's Canal. Battlebridge Basin is accessible from the rear of the museum. It is a five-minute walk to King's Cross St Pancras tube station.
London Canal Museum | Location
The New Britain Museum of American Art is an art museum in New Britain, Connecticut. Founded in 1903, it is the first museum in the country dedicated to American art. A total of 72,000 visits were made to the museum in the year ending June 30, 2009, and another 16,000 visits were made to the museum's satellite gallery at TheatreWorks in Hartford, Connecticut. Walnut Hill Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, is next to the museum.
New Britain Museum of American Art | Introduction
Free entrance is standard practice in all UK National Museums, although some exhibits do require an admission fee to view. Several of the museums have more than one location throughout the UK.
National Museums of the United Kingdom | Introduction
The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons and ornate architecture—sometimes dubbed a "cathedral of nature"—both exemplified by the large "Diplodocus" cast that dominated the vaulted central hall before it was replaced in 2017 with the skeleton of a blue whale hanging from the ceiling. The Natural History Museum Library contains extensive books, journals, manuscripts, and artwork collections linked to the work and research of the scientific departments; access to the library is by appointment only. The museum is recognised as the pre-eminent centre of natural history and research of related fields in the world. Although commonly referred to as the Natural History Museum, it was officially known as British Museum (Natural History) until 1992, despite legal separation from the British Museum itself in 1963.
Natural History Museum, London | Introduction
It currently defines itself as follows:
UK Museum of Ordure | Introduction
The British Motor Museum in Warwickshire, England, holds the World's largest collection of historic British cars. There are over 300 classic cars on display from the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust and the Jaguar Heritage Trust.
British Motor Museum | Introduction
There is some material from the Roman Republic, but the collection's strength is in its comprehensive array of objects from across the Roman Empire, with the exception of Britain (which is the mainstay of the Department of Prehistory and Europe).
British Museum | Department of Greece and Rome
The website and online database of the collection also provide increasing amounts of information.
British Museum | Libraries and archives
Modern museums first emerged in western Europe, then spread into other parts of the world. The first "public" museums were often accessible only by the middle and upper classes. It could be difficult to gain entrance. When the British Museum opened to the public in 1759, it was a concern that large crowds could damage the artifacts. Prospective visitors to the British Museum had to apply in writing for admission, and small groups were allowed into the galleries each day. The British Museum became increasingly popular during the 19th century, amongst all age groups and social classes who visited the British Museum, especially on public holidays.
Museum | Modern history
The British Museum houses one of the world's most comprehensive collections of Ethnographic material from Africa, Oceania and the Americas, representing the cultures of indigenous peoples throughout the world. Over 350,000 objects spanning thousands of years tells the history of mankind from three major continents and many rich and diverse cultures; the collecting of modern artefacts is ongoing. Many individuals have added to the department's collection over the years but those assembled by Henry Christy, Harry Beasley and William Oldman are outstanding. Objects from this department are mostly on display in several galleries on the ground and lower floors. Gallery 24 displays ethnographic from every continent while adjacent galleries focus on North America and Mexico.
British Museum | Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas
London's museums of military and maritime history also opened in the twentieth century: the Imperial War Museum in 1917, and the National Maritime Museum in 1934. London has several smaller museums of note. The Dulwich Picture Gallery was the first purpose-built public art gallery in England, opening in 1817. Its architect, Sir John Soane, turned his own house in Lincoln's Inn Fields into a museum and architectural showcase, known as the Soane Museum. The Wallace Collection is a notable small collection of Old Master paintings and furniture, with an emphasis on French works. The Courtauld Institute of Art, which pioneered the study of art history in Britain from its foundation in 1932, is now located in Somerset House, the former premises of the Royal Academy.
Culture of London | Museums and art galleries
Work was also progressing on the northern half of the West Wing (The Egyptian Sculpture Gallery) 1826–1831, with Montagu House demolished in 1842 to make room for the final part of the West Wing, completed in 1846, and the South Wing with its great colonnade, initiated in 1843 and completed in 1847, when the Front Hall and Great Staircase were opened to the public. The museum is faced with Portland stone, but the perimeter walls and other parts of the building were built using Haytor granite from Dartmoor in South Devon, transported via the unique Haytor Granite Tramway. In 1846 Robert Smirke was replaced as the museum's architect by his brother Sydney Smirke, whose major addition was the Round Reading Room 1854–1857; at in diameter it was then the second widest dome in the world, the Pantheon in Rome being slightly wider.
British Museum | Building
The following museums and art galleries are located in Cambridge, England:
List of museums in Cambridge | Introduction
The amalgamation of the collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall Museum and of the London Museum, which was located in Kensington Palace, was agreed in 1964. The Museum of London Act, allowing for the merger, was passed in the following year. The museum was opened in December 1976 as part of the Barbican Estate. The architects were Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, who adopted an innovative approach to museum design, whereby the galleries were laid out so that there was only one route through the museum – from the prehistoric period to the modern galleries. The museum comprises a series of chronological galleries containing original artefacts, models, pictures and diagrams, with a strong emphasis on archaeological discoveries, the built city, urban development and London's social and cultural life, with interactive displays and activities for all ages.
Museum of London | Description
The Bank of England Museum, located within the Bank of England in the City of London, is home to a collection of diverse artifacts detailing the history of the Bank from its foundation in 1694 to present.
Bank of England Museum | Introduction
The departure of the British Library to a new site at St Pancras, finally achieved in 1998, provided the space needed for the books. It also created the opportunity to redevelop the vacant space in Robert Smirke's 19th-century central quadrangle into the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court – the largest covered square in Europe – which opened in 2000. The ethnography collections, which had been housed in the short-lived Museum of Mankind at 6 Burlington Gardens from 1970, were returned to new purpose-built galleries in the museum in 2000. The museum again readjusted its collecting policies as interest in "modern" objects: prints, drawings, medals and the decorative arts reawakened.
British Museum | The Great Court emerges (1975–2000)
Originating from collections within the British Museum, the landmark Alfred Waterhouse building was built and opened by 1881 and later incorporated the Geological Museum. The Darwin Centre is a more recent addition, partly designed as a modern facility for storing the valuable collections.
Natural History Museum, London | Introduction
In addition, the British Museum's collections covering the period AD 300 to 1100 are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world, extending from Spain to the Black Sea and from North Africa to Scandinavia; a representative selection of these has recently been redisplayed in a newly refurbished gallery. Important collections include Latvian, Norwegian, Gotlandic and Merovingian material from Johann Karl Bähr, Alfred Heneage Cocks, Sir James Curle and Philippe Delamain respectively. However, the undoubted highlight from the early mediaeval period are the magnificent items from the Sutton Hoo royal grave, generously donated to the nation by the landowner Edith Pretty.
British Museum | Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory
Greenwich Museum may refer to several museums in London:
Greenwich Museum | Introduction
The Natural History Museum in London is a natural history museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road.
List of Independent Research Organisations in the United Kingdom | Natural History Museum
The People's History Museum (the National Museum of Labour History until 2001) in Manchester, England, is the UK's national centre for the collection, conservation, interpretation and study of material relating to the history of working people in the UK. It is located in a grade II-listed, former hydraulic pumping station on the corner of the Bridge Street and Water Street designed by Manchester Corporation City Architect, Henry Price. The museum tells the story of the history of in Great Britain and about people's lives at home, work and leisure over the last 200 years. The collection contains printed material, physical objects and photographs of people at work, rest and play.
People's History Museum | Introduction
This is a list of museums in London, the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. It also includes university and non-profit art galleries. As of 2016, there were over 250 registered art institutions in Greater London.
List of museums in London | Introduction
Its collection of more than seven million objects is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world, sourced from every continent, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present. The British Library in London is the national library and is one of the world's largest research libraries, holding over 150 million items in almost all known languages and formats; including around 25 million books. The most senior art gallery is the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, which houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The Tate galleries house the national collections of British and international modern art; they also host the famously controversial Turner Prize.
England | Museums, libraries, and galleries
Although today principally a museum of cultural art objects and antiquities, the British Museum was founded as a "universal museum". Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish physician and naturalist Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753), a London-based doctor and scientist from Ulster. During the course of his lifetime, and particularly after he married the widow of a wealthy Jamaican planter, Sloane gathered a large collection of curiosities and, not wishing to see his collection broken up after death, he bequeathed it to King George II, for the nation, for a sum of £20,000. At that time, Sloane's collection consisted of around 71,000 objects of all kinds including some 40,000 printed books, 7,000 manuscripts, extensive natural history specimens including 337 volumes of dried plants, prints and drawings including those by Albrecht Dürer and antiquities from Sudan, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Ancient Near and Far East and the Americas.
British Museum | Sir Hans Sloane
In 1962 the Duveen Gallery was finally restored and the Parthenon Sculptures were moved back into it, once again at the heart of the museum. By the 1970s the museum was again expanding. More services for the public were introduced; visitor numbers soared, with the temporary exhibition "Treasures of Tutankhamun" in 1972, attracting 1,694,117 visitors, the most successful in British history. In the same year the Act of Parliament establishing the British Library was passed, separating the collection of manuscripts and printed books from the British Museum. This left the museum with antiquities; coins, medals and paper money; prints & drawings; and ethnography.
British Museum | A new public face (1950–1975)
The museum also held the collection of artefacts of the Commonwealth Institute; extensive photograph stills, paper, film and oral history archives, and a costume collection. These are now in the care of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives (apart from loans which were returned to their owners). The museum was also the home of the New World Tapestry.
British Empire and Commonwealth Museum | The museum
In addition, a unique and valuable group of objects from Java, including shadow puppets and a gamelan musical set, was assembled by Sir Stamford Raffles. The principal gallery devoted to Asian art in the museum is Gallery 33 with its comprehensive display of Chinese, Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asian objects. An adjacent gallery showcases the Amaravati sculptures and monuments. Other galleries on the upper floors are devoted to its Japanese, Korean, painting and calligraphy, and Chinese ceramics collections.
British Museum | Department of Asia
The UK's main collection of Western prints and drawings is held in the British Museum and includes fine examples by the Old Masters. The National Gallery holds no works on paper; only paintings and sculptures of the European tradition. Originally known as the national gallery of British art, Tate Britain holds British prints and drawings, which include the world's largest collection of watercolours, sketches and engravings by JMW Turner, historic works on paper from the late 18th and 19th centuries, and modern and contemporary British and International prints. The Victoria and Albert Museum's works on the paper collection have a particularly broad remit, encompassing works of fine and applied art (including posters) as well as ephemera.
Print room | Often not in the expected museum
Choice horological pieces came from the Morgan and Ilbert collections. The department is also responsible for the curation of Romano-British objects – the museum has by far the most extensive such collection in Britain and one of the most representative regional collections in Europe outside Italy. It is particularly famous for the large number of late Roman silver treasures, many of which were found in East Anglia, the most important of which is the Mildenhall Treasure. The museum purchased many Roman-British objects from the antiquarian Charles Roach Smith in 1856. These quickly formed the nucleus of the collection. The department also includes ethnographic material from across Europe including a collection of Bulgarian costumes and shadow puppets from Greece and Turkey.
British Museum | Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory
For example, the Koh-i-Noor diamond, the jade wine cup of Shah Jahan and the crown of Bahadur Shah II are all currently located in London. Various requests for restitution have been rejected by the British government. The museum, therefore, is only able to show a very small fraction of Mughal property and heritage.
Red Fort Archaeological Museum | History
The Yale Center for British Art at Yale University in downtown New Haven, Connecticut, houses the largest and most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. The collection of paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, rare books, and manuscripts reflects the development of British art and culture from the Elizabethan period onward.
Yale Center for British Art | Introduction
The Natural History Museum in London is a natural history museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items within five main collections: botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology. The museum is a centre of research specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Charles Darwin.
Natural History Museum, London | Introduction
Fragments of the Roman London Wall can be seen just outside the museum.
Museum of London | Description
By the last years of the 19th century, The British Museum's collections had increased to the extent that its building was no longer large enough. In 1895 the trustees purchased the 69 houses surrounding the museum with the intention of demolishing them and building around the west, north and east sides of the museum. The first stage was the construction of the northern wing beginning 1906. All the while, the collections kept growing. Emil Torday collected in Central Africa, Aurel Stein in Central Asia, D.G. Hogarth, Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence excavated at Carchemish. Around this time, the American collector and philanthropist J Pierpont Morgan donated a substantial number of objects to the museum, including William Greenwell's collection of prehistoric artefacts from across Europe which he had purchased for £10,000 in 1908.
British Museum | New century, new building (1900–1925)
The natural history collections were an integral part of the British Museum until their removal to the new British Museum of Natural History in 1887, nowadays the Natural History Museum. With the departure and the completion of the new White Wing (fronting Montague Street) in 1884, more space was available for antiquities and ethnography and the library could further expand. This was a time of innovation as electric lighting was introduced in the Reading Room and exhibition galleries. The William Burges collection of armoury was bequeathed to the museum in 1881. In 1882, the museum was involved in the establishment of the independent Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society) the first British body to carry out research in Egypt.
British Museum | Scholarship and legacies (1875–1900)
4926) in London.
British Library Or 4926 | Description
London's British Museum hosts a collection of more than seven million objects is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world, sourced from every continent, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present. The library has two of the four remaining copies of the original Magna Carta (the other two copies are held in Lincoln Castle and Salisbury Cathedral) and has a room devoted solely to them. The British Library Sound Archive has over six million recordings, many from the BBC Sound Archive, including Winston Churchill's wartime speeches.
Culture of England | Heritage, museums and galleries
Museum Street is a street in the Bloomsbury area of the London Borough of Camden, England. To the north is the British Museum, hence its current name. The street is populated by cafes and bookshops to appeal to the international museum-going public. To the north is Great Russell Street. To the south are Bloomsbury Way and New Oxford Street. The nearest tube stations are Tottenham Court Road and Holborn to the southwest and southeast respectively.
Museum Street | Introduction
The British National collection of Western Art to 1900 is held at The National Gallery. Other major collections of pre-1900 art are The Wallace Collection; the Courtauld Gallery at the Courtauld Institute of Art; and Dulwich Picture Gallery. The national collection of post-1900 art is at Tate Modern and the national collection of British Art is at Tate Britain. The National Portrait Gallery has a major collection dedicated to prominent British people from all periods. The Royal Academy's temporary exhibitions are also important. In addition to Tate Modern major contemporary art venues include White Cube, the Saatchi Gallery, and The ICA.
Culture of London | Art
Although it is known that a museum existed in 1774, its location remains a mystery. It was referred to as the "White room adjoining Gallery" in the inventory of 1791, when it housed a number of framed drawings. The present-day Museum Rooms were, according to a plan of 1775, two bedrooms separated by a dressing room. By the 1850s an elaborate theatre had been created in this area, with the outer room serving as an auditorium and the inner room as a stage and fly tower. The Museum Rooms in their present form date from the 1970s, when William Constable's assorted collections of scientific material were recovered from attics where they had been stored since the early 19th century.
Burton Constable Hall | Museums
This Greek Revival style building sits at the heart of British academia in London's Bloomsbury. With its four vast wings, 43 Greek temples inspired columns, triangular pediment, and enormous steps, it's certainly not what you'd expect to see in central London. Its grandeur was designed to reflect all the 'wondrous objects housed inside' by the architect Sir Robert Smirke in 1823. It emulated classical Greek architecture – a style that had become increasingly popular since the 1750s when western Europeans 'rediscovered' ancient Greece.
British Museum Reading Room | Architecture
Under his supervision, the British Museum Library (now part of the British Library) quintupled in size and became a well-organised institution worthy of being called a national library, the largest library in the world after the National Library of Paris. The quadrangle at the centre of Smirke's design proved to be a waste of valuable space and was filled at Panizzi's request by a circular Reading Room of cast iron, designed by Smirke's brother, Sydney Smirke. Until the mid-19th century, the museum's collections were relatively circumscribed but, in 1851, with the appointment to the staff of Augustus Wollaston Franks to curate the collections, the museum began for the first time to collect British and European medieval antiquities, prehistory, branching out into Asia and diversifying its holdings of ethnography.
British Museum | Collecting from the wider world (1850–1875)
The Department of Asia in the British Museum holds one of the largest collections of historical objects from Asia. These collections comprise over 75,000 objects covering the material culture of the Asian continent (including East Asia, South and Central Asia, and Southeast Asia), and dating from the Neolithic age up to the present day.
British Museum Department of Asia | Introduction
Other transport museums with items from London Transport: Other transport and industrial museums in London: Other major transport museums in the UK:
London Transport Museum | See also
The Reading Room closed in 1997 when the national library (the British Library) moved to a new building at St Pancras. Today it has been transformed into the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Centre. With the bookstacks in the central courtyard of the museum empty, the demolition for Lord Foster's glass-roofed Great Court could begin. The Great Court, opened in 2000, while undoubtedly improving circulation around the museum, was criticised for having a lack of exhibition space at a time when the museum was in serious financial difficulties and many galleries were closed to the public. At the same time the African collections that had been temporarily housed in 6 Burlington Gardens were given a new gallery in the North Wing funded by the Sainsbury family – with the donation valued at £25 million.
British Museum | The British Museum today
Museumsand galleries
Outline of London | Museums and galleries in London
The British Museum in London with its collection of more than seven million objects, is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world, and sourced from every continent, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present. On display since 1802, the Rosetta Stone is the most viewed attraction. The Natural History Museum, London was established by Richard Owen (who coined the term "dinosaur") to display the national collection of dinosaur fossils and other biological and geological exhibits. The National Museums of Scotland bring together national collections in Scotland. Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales comprises eight museums in Wales.
Culture of the United Kingdom | Museums and galleries
The tour was partly funded by the Scottish Government, and Mike Russell, the Minister for Culture and External Affairs, stated that the Government and the British Museum had "agreed to disagree" on their eventual fate. Bonnie Greer, the museum's deputy chairman, said that she "absolutely" believed the main collection should remain in London.
Lewis chessmen | Dispute over location
This is a list of railway museums in the United Kingdom.
List of railway museums in the United Kingdom | Introduction
The museum was founded in 1989 by Sir Terence Conran. It was originally located by the River Thames near Tower Bridge, and later relocated to Kensington. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all funds generated by ticket sales aid the museum in curating new exhibitions.
Design Museum | History
Although the exact location of that tomb is now lost, a number of wall paintings from the tomb were acquired by the British Museum where they are now on display. They are considered to be one of that museum's greatest treasures.
Nebamun | Introduction
Barnet Museum is in the London Borough of Barnet. It has displays on topics including the Battle of Barnet, Barnet Fair and Market. It is a centre for local and family research and its archives, library and reference collection are available for use by members of the public.
Barnet Museum | Introduction
In 1857, Charles Newton was to discover the 4th-century BC Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In the 1840s and 1850s the museum supported excavations in Assyria by A.H. Layard and others at sites such as Nimrud and Nineveh. Of particular interest to curators was the eventual discovery of Ashurbanipal's great library of cuneiform tablets, which helped to make the museum a focus for Assyrian studies. Sir Thomas Grenville (1755–1846), a trustee of the British Museum from 1830, assembled a library of 20,240 volumes, which he left to the museum in his will. The books arrived in January 1847 in twenty-one horse-drawn vans.
British Museum | The largest building site in Europe (1825–1850)
The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and today is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Science Museum does not charge visitors for admission, although visitors are asked for a donation if they are able. Temporary exhibitions may incur an admission fee. It is part of the Science Museum Group, having merged with the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester in 2012.
Science Museum, London | Introduction
The London Museum, established to illustrate the history of London, England. was inaugurated on 21 March 1912 by King George V with Queen Mary and Princess Mary and Prince George in temporary accommodation within the second-floor State Apartments at Kensington Palace. It opened to the public on 8 April, admitting more than 13,000 visitors during the day. Two years after opening, the collections were moved to Lancaster House in St James's, and the museum remained there until World War II. The first Keeper of the museum was Sir Guy Francis Laking, and from 1926 to 1944 the Keeper was the archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler.
London Museum | Introduction
This is not an exhaustive list — a complete list is provided on the centre's website. Due to space limitations, not all cars are exhibited at all times.
British Motor Museum | Vehicles in the collection
The Director of the British Museum is the head of the British Museum in London, a post currently held by Hartwig Fischer. He is responsible for that institution's general administration and reports its accounts to the British Government. The actual governance of the British Museum, however, is delegated to its board of trustees. At the museum's inception its most senior member of staff was called "principal librarian". The job title became "director and principal librarian" in 1898, and "director" in 1973, on the separation of the British Library from the museum.
List of directors of the British Museum | Introduction
The Museum of London Antiquities was a collection established by Charles Roach Smith in Bishopsgate, London, England. In 1854, Roach Smith published a "Catalogue Of The Museum Of London Antiquities" to itemize the collection. In 1855, he sold the collection to the British Museum.
Museum of London Antiquities | Introduction
During World War II, much of the collection was evacuated for storage at nearby Dover Street tube station, and later at Piccadilly Circus tube station. Some of the galleries at Lancaster House reopened to the public in 1942, but in November 1943 the building was requisitioned by the Ministry of Works as a conference centre and base for the new European Advisory Commission, the museum retaining only the basement for storage of its collections. After World War II, attempts to reclaim Lancaster House for the museum's use failed. Eventually in 1948 George VI agreed that the museum might be accommodated once more in part of Kensington Palace, this time on the lower two floors, and it reopened there in July 1951.
London Museum | Introduction
The museum ceased exhibiting at Burlington Gardens in 1997 and the Department of Ethnography moved back to the British Museum in Bloomsbury in 2004.
Ethnography at the British Museum | Museum of Mankind
The Museum of Everything staged its first exhibition in London in October 2009. It then continued to present large-scale surveys at different locations around the world, working within and alongside partner institutions and organisations. The first location for The Museum of Everything was a former dairy and recording studio in Primrose Hill, London. It was here that it first staged its celebrated exhibitions (2009/2010). The Museum of Everything then travelled to other venues, including: Selfridges, the department store and former hotel in London (2011); Chalet Society, a temporary space in Boulevard Raspail, Paris (2012/13); and Serra dei Giardini, Venice (2013) as part of the 55th Venice Biennale.
The Museum of Everything (museum) | Establishment and description
The closest London Underground station is South Kensington — there is a tunnel from the station that emerges close to the entrances of all three museums. Admission is free, though there are donation boxes in the foyer. Museum Lane immediately to the north provides disabled access to the museum. A connecting bridge between the Natural History and Science museums closed to the public in the late 1990s.
Natural History Museum, London | Access
London Liverpool England (other museums)
List of music museums | United Kingdom