Lives of the Founders of the British Museum, Part 2 of 2: With Notices of Its Chief Augmentors and Other Benefactors, 1570-1870.Edwards, Edward
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Lives of the Founders of the British Museum, Part 2 of 2: With Notices of Its Chief Augmentors and Other Benefactors, 1570-1870.
Edwards, Edward
Book collectors -- Great Britain; British Museum
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 Museum to claim rank among the most
classical buildings of modern times. [Sidenote: URGENCY OF BUILDING AT
ONCE.] 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 redistribution 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.
[Sidenote: WHAT TO BE FIRST PUT IN HAND.]
Your Committee are of opinion that the new building facing Montague
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.
[Sidenote: COMMITTEE OF TRUSTEES TO BE APPOINTED.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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