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British Museum

About: 

The British Museum was established by an Act of Parliament on 7 June 1753, but the origins of the Museum lie with Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), who wanted his collection of more than 71,000 objects, along with his library and herbarium, to be preserved after his death. On 15 January 1759, the British Museum opened to the public and access to view the collections became possible. The round Reading Room at the centre of the museum was constructed from 1854 to 1857.

It is this Reading Room which was frequented by a number of South Asians and their English friends. An article in the Star in January 1926 describes the constituency of the Reading Room thus: ‘From the Centre Desk…to the circumference, long tables radiate like the spokes of a spider’s web; and here sit hundreds of human flies, male and female, black, white, yellow and brown; some digging hard in pursuit of knowledge and scratching their heads at the hard words, others curled up and sleeping like babes’ (quoted in Harris, p. 29).

On his arrival in Britain as a student in 1888, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi used the Reading Room. Other South Asian users include Fredoon Kabraji, Sasadhar Sinha, mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, Cedric Dover, Aubrey Menen, the writer Mulk Raj Anand and his friend Nikhil Sen. Jomo Kenyatta also frequented the Reading Room when he studied at the London School of Economics.

In Conversations in Bloomsbury (1981), Anand relates a meeting between himself, his friend Nikhil Sen and literary critic Bonamy Dobree in the Museum Tavern. Anand also records meetings with Aldous Huxley, Laurence Binyon (who was Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum at the time) and Emily Richardson in the Reading Room.

Secondary works: 

Anand, Mulk Raj, Conversations in Bloomsbury (London: Wildwood House, 1981)

Barwick, George Frederick, The Reading Room of the British Museum (London: Ernest Benn, 1929)

British Museum, British Museum Reading Room, 1857-1957: Centenary Exhibition, etc. (London, 1957)

Caygill, Marjorie L., The British Museum Reading Room (London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum, 2000)

Crook, Joseph M., The British Museum (London: Allen Lane, 1972)

Esdaile, Arundell, The British Museum Library: A Short History and Survey (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1946)

Fortescue, George K., A Guide to the Use of the Reading Room (London, 1912)

Harris, P. R., The Reading Room (London: British Library, 1979)

Harris, P. R., A History of the British Museum Library, 1753-1973 (London: British Library, 1998)

Hunt, James D., Gandhi in London (New Delhi: Promilla & Co., 1978)
 
Menen, Aubrey, Dead Man in the Silver Market: An Autobiographical Essay on National Pride (London: Chatto & Windus, 1954)
 
Miller, Edward, Prince of Librarians: The Life and Times of Antonio Panizzi of the British Museum (London: Andre Deutsch, 1967)
 
Miller, Edward, That Noble Cabinet: A History of the British Museum (London: Andre Deutsch, 1973)
 
Peddie, Robert Alexander, The British Museum Reading Room: A Handbook for Students (London: Grafton & Co., 1912)
 
Penn, J., For Readers Only (London: Chapman & Hall, 1936)
Date began: 
07 Jun 1753
Key Individuals' Details: 

Laurence Binyon (Keeper of Prints and Drawings), Sir Hans Sloane (founder).

Archive source: 

Readers' signature books, applications for admission (including testimonials) and various indexes, British Museum Archives

Location

Great Russell Street
London, WC1B 3DG
United Kingdom
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