Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 15th May 1845 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
Context area
Name of creator
Administrative history
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. On 7 June 1753, King George II gave his royal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. The British Museum Act 1753 added two other libraries to the Sir Hans Sloane collection, those of the Cottonian Library, assembled by Sir Robert Cotton, dating back to Elizabethan times, and the Harleian Library, the collection of the Earls of Oxford. They were joined in 1757 by the "Old Royal Library", now the Royal manuscripts, assembled by various British monarchs.
Montagu House, c. 1715
The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public and aiming to collect everything. Sloane's collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests.[16] The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary and antiquarian element, and meant that the British Museum now became both National Museum and library
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Letter from Josiah Forshall (1795–1863), Secretary British Museum, to Brian Houghton Hodgson on behalf of the Trustees of the Museum to thank Hodgson for his valuable present of a manuscript in the language of Tibet, being the Yum, part of the Prajnāpāramitā. Handwritten, 1 side, dated 15 May 1845. Additional notes in the autograph book state that Hodgson had given copies of the Prajnāpāramitā to different institutions and persons including the Royal Asiatic Society, the Bodleian Library, College of Fort-William in Calcutta (3 copies), and Eugène Burnouf at the Société Asiatique.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- English
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Alternative identifier(s)
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- British Museum 1753- London, England (Subject)