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BOOK III,

Chap. VII. RECONSTRUCTORS

AND PRO

JECTORS.

FUTURE USE

OF BASEMENT.

BUILDING AT

Your Committee, proceeds the Report, do not think it necessary to give the particulars of the accommodation which the unappropriated portions of the basement floor would afford for the preservation of moulds, as well as for the formatore, for making and preserving casts of statues and other large objects, as well as of gems and seals, and also for providing such decent and suitable conveniences as the health and comfort of the thousands who visit the Museum absolutely require.

It is, perhaps, unnecessary to do more than simply to remind the Trustees that the want of space at the Museum has been felt and has been urged on the Government for several years past, and that during the last four or five years the additions to the Collections of Antiquities have been so rapid and so numerous, as to render it impossible to do more than provide for them temporary shelter at a considerable expense, and to the great disfigurement of the noble façade which entitles the URGENCY OF Museum to claim rank among the most classical buildings of modern times. Should the above proposals of your Committee meet with the approbation of the Trustees and the sanction of the Government, they ought to be carried into effect without delay. The Government would, doubtless, lose no time in providing a proper building for the reception of such collections as are to be removed from the Museum; until this removal has taken place, no re-distribution of the vacated space can be undertaken; but the new structures proposed to be erected on ground now unoccupied ought to be proceeded with at once, that they might be rendered available as speedily as possible.

ONCE.

WHAT TO BE

HAND.

Your Committee are of opinion that the new building facing Montague FIRST PUT IN Street, the building for the bookbinder, the building intended to be erected on the ground now vacant between the Elgin Room and the Print Room, and the construction of the new principal staircases, should be commenced immediately. The building intended to be erected on the vacant ground on the west of the Trustees' Room (No. 11 on the plan), must, necessarily, be postponed for awhile. The alterations which might and ought to be rapidly completed, are those which will be required on the east side of the King's Library (No. 55 and 57), to transfer the gallery to the Department of MSS. from that of Printed Books.

COMMITTEE

TO BE AP

POINTED.

The Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury state that they OF TRUSTEES will be prepared to enter upon the details of these questions in communication with the Trustees, and even, if it should be desired, to offer suggestions upon them.' Your Committee are of opinion that the proffered assistance should be at once accepted; and that in order to derive all possible advantage from that assistance a small Committee of Trustees should be appointed to carry on the necessary communications with the Treasury, either verbally or otherwise, and to consider with their Lordships all suggestions that might be offered respecting the

RECON

points touched upon in this Report, and their details. This Committee Book III, would be similar to that which the Trustees requested the Treasury to Chap. VII. appoint, by letter of the twentieth of June, 1829, and which was afterwards appointed by the Trustees themselves, with the approbation of their Lordships, to direct and superintend, not only the works then in JECTORS. progress, but those to be afterwards undertaken.

STRUCTORS

AND PRO

On the tenth of February, 1862-after the communication of this Report to each of the Trustees individually— the recommendations of the Sub-Committee were unanimously approved, at a Special General Meeting of the Trustees, at which twenty-four members of the Board Correspondwere present. After the adoption of the plans thus accepted, another Sub-Committee of Trustees was appointed Museum, No. to confer with the Treasury in order to their realisation.

Before Parliament, this plan of severance and of rearrangement-after some modifications of detail which are too unimportant for remark-was supported, in 1862, with the whole influence of the Government. But it failed to win any adequate amount either of parliamentary or of public favour. Some men doubted if the estimated saving, as between building at Bloomsbury and building at Kensington, would or could be realized. Others denied that the evils or inconveniences attendant upon severance would be compensated by any adequate gain on other points. The popularity of the Natural History Collections; the facilities of access to Great Russell Street; the weightythough far from unanimous-expressions of opinion from eminent men of science in favour of continuance and enlargement, rather than of severance and removal; all these and other objections were raised, and were more or less dwelt upon, both in the House of Commons and in scientific circles out of doors, scarcely less entitled to discuss a national question of this kind. The Commons

ence Relating to the British

97 of Session

1862.

THE PARLIA¬

MENTARY

DEBATE OF

1862.

BOOK III,
Chap. VII.
RECON-

STRUCTORS
AND PRO-
JECTORS.

eventually decided against the project by their vote of the 19th May, 1862.

Substantially, and in spite of small subsequent additions from time to time to the buildings at Bloomsburythe question of 1862 is still the question of 1870. As I have said, it has been my object to state that question rather than to discuss it.

Should it seem, after full examination, that good government may be better maintained, and adequate space for growth be efficiently provided, by enlarging the existing Museum, would it be worthy of Britain to allow the additional expenditure of a few scores of thousands of pounds an expenditure which would be spread over the taxation of many years-to preponderate in the final vote of Parliament over larger and more enduring considerations ?

In the session of 1866 Mr. Spencer WALPOLE spoke thus: You must either determine to separate the Collections now in the Museum, or buy more land in Bloomsbury. I have always been for keeping them together. I am, however, perfectly willing to take either course, provided you do not heap those stores one on another-as at present,' (July, 1866)-in such a manner as to render them really not so available as they ought to be to those who wish to make them objects of study.' Few men are so well entitled to speak, authoritatively, on the questionbecause few have given such an amount of time and labour to its consideration.

By every available and legitimate expression of opinion the Trustees have acted in the spirit of this remark, made almost four years since, by one of the most eminent of their number. The words are, unfortunately, as apposite in March, 1870, as they were in July, 1866.

THE END.

GENERAL INDEX.

ABBOT, George, Archbishop of Canter-

bury, 66, 70

Abercorn, Earl of. See Hamilton
Abercromby, Sir Ralph, 548
Abyssinia, MSS., brought from, 707
Accessibility, Public, of the British
Museum, Successive changes in the
Regulations and Statistics of the,
323, 336, 338, 339, 341, 368, 520,
599

Adair, Sir Robert, 373

Æginæ, Vases and other Antiquities
brought from, 386 seqq.

Africa, Pre-historic and Ethnographical
Collections from, 699 seqq.
Agarde, Arthur, and Sir Robert Cotton,
85, 86

Albemarle, Duchess of. See Monk
Albums, Series of German, 457
Alexandria, Sarcophagus from, 365
seqq.

Allan-Greg Cabinet of Minerals, 606
Almanzi, Joseph, Hebrew Library of,

42

Amadei, Victor, Marbles from the Col-

lection of, 372

Amba-Bichoi, Biblical MSS. from the

Monastery of, 615 seqq.

America, Pre-historic and Ethnogra-
phical Collections from, 699 seqq.
Anadhouly, Exploration by Sir Charles
Fellows of, 644

Ancient Marbles in the British Museum,
Description of the, 372 seqq.
Anderson, Edmund (of Eyworth and
Stratton), 132

Andréossi, Anthony Francis, Count, Re-
searches in the Monasteries of Nitria
of, 610

Angoulême, Duke of, 539

Anne, Queen of England, 207 seqq.
Anne of Denmark, Queen Consort of
James I, 153, 156, 166

Ansse de Villoisin, John Baptist, G. d', 455
Antiphellus, Researches of Sir Charles

Fellows at, 644

Antiquités Étrusques, &c., 352 seqq.
Apotheosis of Homer, 401
Arcadia, Archæological Explorations in,
397 seqq.

Argos, Vases and other Antiquities from,
386

Artas of Sidon, Ancient glasswork of,
709 seqq.

Artemisia, Ancient Sculptures from the
Mausoleum built by, 664 seqq.
Arundel, Earl of. See Fitzalan
Arundel, Earl of. See Howard
Arundelian Library, 198 seqq.
Arundelian Marbles, 197 seqq.
Ashburnham House, Fire at, 140
Askew, Anthony, 472

Assemani, Joseph Simon, and Stephen
Evode, obtain, for the Vatican,
Syriac MSS. from the Monastery of
the Syrians, 617

Assyrian Antiquities, First beginning
of the Collection of, 401; Account of
the Discoveries by Mr. Layard and
his successors of, 629 seqq.
Athanasius, Saint, Syriac Version of the
Festal Letters of, 623

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