Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury

Founded in 1753 by Act of Parliament to house the collections bequeathed to the Nation
by Sir Hans Sloane & others. It cost £85.000 to set up, largely raised by a lottery.
It has been funded by Parliament since then.
Montague House, Bloomsbury was bought in 1755 for £10.250.
It was opened to the public of January 15th, 1759.
Additions to the Sloane collection were :
The Cottonian Library, given by Sir Robert Cotton
Major Edwards's Library of printed books
The Harleian Collection of manuscripts
[Originally bought by Thomas Osborne for £13.000, a small sum considering it was said that Lord
Oxford had paid £18.000 for the binding of only part of the collection.
Bought by the Govt for £10.000]
Sir William Hamilton's collection of Greek vases
The Townleian Collection of antique marbles
[Parliament voted £20.000 to buy these]
The manuscripts of the Marquis of Lansdowne
[Parliament voted £4925 to buy these]
The Elgin marbles from Athens
[Parliament voted £35.000 to buy these]
The Greville Minerals
[Parliament voted £8200 to buy these]
Dr Burney's Classical Library
Parliament voted £13.500 to buy this
George II gave the whole library of printed books collected by monarchs from Henry VII
to William III.
George III gave a collection of pamphlets published between 1640 & 1760.
In 1824 a library formed under the direction of George III was presented to the Museum
by George IV.
R P Knight gave 5,205 valuable Greek coins to the Museum.
The Rev W H Carr gave 35 ancient pictures.

READING
19thC
The People's Handbook to the British Museum (1843 London)
H G Clark : The British Museum - A Handbook Guide for Visitors (1843 London)
James Fergusson : Observations on the British Museum, National Gallery, and National
Record Office, with suggestions for their Improvement (1849 London)
D Masson : The British Museum, Historical and Descriptive (1850 Chambers, Edinburgh)
H G Clark : The British Museum - Its Antiquities and Natural History (1851 London)
W S Vaux : Handbook to the Antiquities in the British Museum (1851 London)
W Fletcher : A Guide to the British Museum (1851 London)
The British Museum, in Five Sections, or How to See the Whole at Once (1852 London)
W B Jerrold : How to see the British Museum : in Four Visits (1852 London)
Richard Sims : Handbook to the Library of the British Museum (1854 London)
British Museum : Description of the New Reading Room and Libraries (1857 London)
Thomas Nichols : A Handbook for Readers in the British Museum (1866 London)
J H Sheppard : A Sketch of the British Museum (1869 Boston, US)
Thomas Nichols : A Handybook of the British Museum for Every-Day Readers (1870 London)
Edward Edwards : Lives of the Founders of the British Museum, with Notices of its Chief
Augmentors and Other Benefactors 1570-1870 (1870 London)

20thC
The List of Catalogues of English Book Sales 1676-1900 (1915 BM)
A Esdaile : The British Museum Library (1946 Allen & Unwin)
Edward J Miller : Prince of Librarians : Antonio Panizzi of the British Museum (1967)
Edward J Miller : A Short History of the British Museum (1970)
Joseph M Crook : The British Museum (1972 London)
Edward J Miller : That Noble Cabinet - A History of the British Museum (1974 Athens, Ohio)
David M Wilson : The British Museum - A History (2002 British Museum £29.99)