Showing The British Museum: 250 Years by Marjorie Caygill

Paperback. Pub Date: 2003 Pages: 64 in Publisher: itish Museum Press This book has been published to record a a quarter of a millennium in the life of the most famous museum in the world. The founding of the itish Museum - the first ever public. national and secular institution of its kind - took place on 7 June 1753 by means of an Act of Parliament. Today. around 5 million people visit it each year. successors to countless others who have passed along Great Russell Street since the Museum opened to the public for the first time on 15 January 1759. Some of their comments - both admiring and critical. but rarely indifferent - are given here.The itish Museum's unique collections. drawn from cultures throughout the world from prehistory to the present. are shown as they were gathered together decade by decade under one roof - Sir Hans Sloane's Durer drawings. Sir Williams Hamil...