For other uses, see British Museum (disambiguation).
British Museum
Aerial shot of the British Museum
Location within Central London
Established
7 June 1753; 270 years ago (1753-06-07)
Location
Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG, England
Collection size
Approx. 8 million objects[1]
Visitors
5,820,860 (2023)[2] (up 42% from 2022)
Ranked first nationally
Chair
George Osborne
Director
Sir Mark Jones
Public transit access
Tottenham Court Road Goodge Street; Holborn; Russell Square
Website
britishmuseum.org
Area
807,000 sq ft (75,000 m2) in 94 galleries
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world.[3] It documents the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.[a] The British Museum was the first public national museum to cover all fields of knowledge.[4]
In 2023 the museum received 5,820,860 visitors, an increase of 42% from 2022. It was the most popular attraction in the United Kingdom according to ALVA, the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions.[2]
The museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the Anglo-Irish physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane.[5] It first opened to the public in 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. The museum's expansion over the following 250 years was largely a result of British colonisation and resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, or independent spin-offs, the first being the Natural History Museum in 1881. The right to ownership of some of its most well-known acquisitions, notably the Greek Elgin Marbles and the Egyptian Rosetta Stone, is subject to long-term disputes and repatriation claims.[6][7]
In 1973, the British Library Act 1972[8] detached the library department from the British Museum, but it continued to host the now separated British Library in the same Reading Room and building as the museum until 1997. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and as with all national museums in the UK it charges no admission fee, except for loan exhibitions.[9]
^"Collection size". British Museum. Archived from the original on 12 August 2017. Retrieved 22 July 2016.
^ ab"British Museum is the most-visited UK attraction again". BBC News. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
^van Riel, Cees (30 October 2017). "Ranking The World's Most Admired Art Museums, And What Big Business Can Learn From Them". Forbes. Retrieved 18 May 2023.
^"History of the British Museum". The British Museum. Archived from the original on 9 October 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
^"The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane". The British Library. Archived from the original on 19 November 2018. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
^"The Big Question: What is the Rosetta Stone, and should Britain return". The Independent. 9 December 2009. Archived from the original on 11 March 2018. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
^Tharoor, Kanishk (29 June 2015). "Museums and looted art: the ethical dilemma of preserving world cultures". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 June 2020. Retrieved 18 April 2018.
^"British Library Act 1972". legislation.gov.uk. 1972. Archived from the original on 8 August 2022. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
^"Admission and opening times". British Museum. 14 June 2010. Archived from the original on 8 July 2016. Retrieved 4 July 2010.
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The BritishMuseum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of...
Ottoman Greece and shipped to Britain by agents of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, and now held in the BritishMuseum in London. The majority of the...
A museum (/mjuːˈziːəm/ mew-ZEE-əm) is an institution dedicated to displaying and/or preserving culturally significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions...
BritishMuseum was a station on the London Underground, located in Holborn, central London. It was latterly served by the Central line and took its name...
The BritishMuseum algorithm is a general approach to finding a solution by checking all possibilities one by one, beginning with the smallest. The term...
at the BritishMuseum could not be returned. The Act also made the Natural History Museum an independent organisation from the BritishMuseum, with its...
moved to the new British Library building at St Pancras, London, but the Reading Room remains in its original form at the BritishMuseum. Designed by Sydney...
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accounts to the British Government. The actual governance of the BritishMuseum, however, is delegated to its board of trustees. At the museum's inception its...
University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-966226-5. "Wall panel; relief BritishMuseum". The BritishMuseum. Stephanie Dalley (1993), "Nineveh after 612 BC", Altorientalische...
Museum in Athens and (controversially) at the BritishMuseum in London (see Elgin Marbles). Additional pieces are at the Louvre, the National Museum of...
Drawings: Closer to the Master (BritishMuseum, London 23 March–25 June 2006). Catalogue by Hugo Chapman. London: BritishMuseum, 2005. 203 colour and 80 b&w...
BritishMuseum leather dressing has been used by many conservators since its publication to protect and conserve leather. The basic formulation is: The...
and plaster casts soon began circulating among European museums and scholars. When the British defeated the French, they took the stone to London under...
museums List of largest buildings List of most visited museums List of national museums William Lee Adams (10 April 2014). "From the BritishMuseum to...
The BritishMuseum Catalogues of Coins was a series envisioned and initiated by Reginald Stuart Poole, Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals, at...
The British Lawnmower Museum is a museum dedicated to the history of the lawnmowers in Southport, Merseyside, northern England. The museum has over 300...
Dacicus Bronze figurine of a gladiator - BritishMuseum Terracotta figurine of 2 gladiators - BritishMuseum E. Köhne and C. Ewigleben (eds.). Gladiators...
collections" of the BritishMuseum in 1753. It is now one of the major collections of the Department of Manuscripts of the British Library. Cotton was...
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 25, pp. 1–7, 1925. H. R. Hall, "Ur and Eridu: The BritishMuseum Excavations of 1919", Journal...