History of museums : an essay, read to the Ashmolean Society, Feb. 12, 1830.

  • Philip Bury Duncan
Date:
[1830]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of museums : an essay, read to the Ashmolean Society, Feb. 12, 1830. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    was formed, which was left to Gresham college. A catalogue of it is published, by which one can judge of the progress that was made in the accumulation of objects of natural history. The next of any note that is mentioned is that of Mr. Courtin’s, or Charleton’s, (for he took the latter name,) near London, I believe at Chelsea. The most extensive that had ever been made in Great Britain was that of Sir Hans Sloane, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This, it is well known, was the foundation of the present British Museum, and was the first purchased for the use of the public by Government. The project of a public establishment of this na- time was first suggested by the Will of Sir Hans Sloane, who during a long period of eminent prac- tice in physic, had accumulated a very large collec- tion of natural and artificial curiosities, together with a numerous library of printed books as well as manuscripts, and who being well aware how much science is benefited by the opportunity which large aggregates of objects presented for comparing them together, and marking their less obvious differences, was very solicitous that his sumptuous Museum, which he declared in his last Will had cost him up- wards of fifty thousand pounds, should, if possible, be preserved entire, and permanently dedicated to public utility. With this view he directed that the whole of his Museum should be offered to the British Parliament for the moderate sum of twenty thousand pounds. Sir Hans Sloane having died in the beginning of the year 1753, the offer in his Will was immediately
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