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The first
A doctor's collection became a museum for the nation
Sir Hans Sloane left around 71,000 objects to the nation in his will, for a payment to his heirs far below their estimated value. The act that founded the British Museum received royal assent from King George II on 7 June 1753.
71,000objects in Sir Hans Sloane's collection
The house
It opened in a converted mansion in January 1759
The trustees chose Montagu House, a converted 17th-century mansion, as the museum's home. They turned down Buckingham House, later Buckingham Palace, because of cost and location. The first galleries and reading room opened on 15 January 1759.
The stones
Two famous stones, and the claims made about them
King George III presented the Rosetta Stone in 1802. In 1806 the Earl of Elgin removed marble sculptures from the Parthenon and transferred them to the UK, and the museum acquired them in 1816. Both are subject to long-term disputes and repatriation claims.
The building
Old Montagu House came down for a neoclassical quadrangle
Montagu House was demolished and Sir Robert Smirke's neoclassical building went up, with the King's Library of 65,000 volumes in the East Wing, completed by 1831. Sydney Smirke's Round Reading Room, with space for a million books, opened in 1857.
The war
The treasures went to a tube station and a quarry
Selected items began moving on 24 August 1939, a day after the Home Secretary advised it, to basements, country houses, Aldwych tube station and the National Library of Wales. In 1942 many went on to Westwood Quarry in Wiltshire.
Day 2, morning
Next is St Paul’s Cathedral.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article British Museum, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.