HC Deb 09 June 1865 vol 179 cc1348-59

(In the Committee.)

(1.) £63,164, to complete the sum for the British Museum.

MR. WALPOLE

said, that the Vote which had been just put from the Chair was the difference between the money voted on account and the sum asked for in the Estimates, and he now rose to make the short statement usually made by Gentlemen who had the honour to fill the position which he now held. The Committee would observe, if they looked to the end of the Estimate, that between the sum voted in 1864–5 and that asked for 1865–6, there was a difference of £8,037, being an increase to that amount in the Estimate of the current year. This Estimate branched off into different portions—one relating to salaries, another to house expenses, a third to ordinary purchases, a fourth to extra- ordinary or special purchases, another to bookbinding and printing of catalogues, and another to buildings. The Committee would find an increase upon salaries and upon special purchases and catalogues, to both of which subjects he would presently call attention; but under some of the other heads the amount remained the same, under others there was a considerable decrease. The main increase was in the special purchases, and that was to be attributed to the fact that while last year only £2,200 was voted for that purpose, this year the item would amount to £7,600. Last year £500 was voted for excavations at Budrum; £1,000 for collections of human and animal remains, &c, from the South of France; and £700 for an antique bronze lamp found in Paris; making in all, under the head of special purchases, £2,200. This year the special purchases recommended to the Treasury would consist of some very valuable additions. The first sum under this head—£2,000—was to complete the purchase of five houses, so as to enable the excavations at Bud-rum to be continued under the superintendence of Vice Consul Billiotti, with a view to the recovery of large portions of the remainder of the tomb of Mausolus. It would add materially to a really valuable work if the expectations of the Trustees were realized by finding a great many interesting fragments of that tomb. Then, there was another item for the purchase of the most valuable mineral collection of Colonel Kokschakoff, of St. Petersburgh, consisting of specimens found in Siberia, and the North of Europe, for which £1,600 had been given; and he was told—for he spoke not from his own knowledge, but from the information of others—that that purchase, added to previous purchases, had actually made our mineralogical collection one of the best in the world. Then, a still larger sum was asked for the purchase of certain articles in two great collections which were offered for sale during the current year—the one was the Pourtales and the other the St. Angelo collection. With regard to the Pourtales collection, instead of frittering away the money at their disposal in the purchase of many small articles, the Trustees determined to expend the larger amount in the purchase of that which was recognized as a chef d'œuvre, the head of Apollo. That work of art, with some others, was accordingly secured for the Museum. The St. Angelo collection was bought in, and consequently the £2,000 which the Government sanctioned for that purchase would no longer be required, and the Vote put from the Chair would to that extent be reduced. As to the increase in the other items of the Museum Estimate, the most important was in the catalogue, which had been defective in two important particulars. The Hebrew books in the library were ill catalogued, and those gentlemen—no doubt they were not very numerous—who applied their studies in that direction, found it a matter of primary importance that there should be a good catalogue of those books. For that purpose £400 was taken in the Estimates, and £800 for catalogues, drawings, and engravings, of and from the coins and medals. If this latter work could be well accomplished, the result would be a valuable addition to the materials for history—because there was hardly any illustration of historical events so accurate as that which is supplied by coins and medals. During the year additions had been made to the Museum in all its departments, but three of these deserved special attention. In the department of Sculpture the Trustees had not only secured the head of Apollo, which he had just mentioned, but also a figure of Mercury, and an admirable copy from that which was believed to be a work of Polycleitus. So much for the antiquities. As to the Numismatic department, it was his pleasing duty to acquaint the House that last autumn Mr. Edward Wigan had made a munificent offer to the Trustees of a choice collection of antique gold coins, running over all the periods of the Empire, from the first Cesar to the last. Every one of these coins was in the most perfect preservation, and no fewer than 223 of them were coins which were not before in the Museum. The value of this collection was estimated at between £5,000 and £6,000. The Natural History department was a very extensive one, but hitherto it had been deficient in specimens of the Natural History of the Holy Land. Recently, however, great exertions had been made to get from the lakes and seas of that part of the world specimens of the fishes. Collections of the birds and animals from Palestine were also being made, and those additions illustrative of the natural history of the Bible were most interesting to all; for all have an interest in that which throws light on the history or production of that sacred country. He did not think he had anything more to add upon these Estimates, which were prepared with a view to make the Museum one of the most complete and valuable institutions of the kind in existence, and the only question that could arise was whether the Trustees were justified in adding to the collection to the extent of the additions made in the course of the last few years, when there was not the accommodation which he had often had occasion to deplore, and which he still did deplore as totally insufficient for the proper exhibition of them. Upon that point, he had only to say that if the opportunity of making these purchases were let slip, it probably never would occur again; and he thought, therefore, that the Trustees would be neglecting their duty if they did not take advantage of such opportunities. With regard to the accommodation, that is a subject which would properly come before the House upon a distinct Motion. The Trustees had constantly applied to the Treasury for the means of providing adequate accommodation for these magnificent collections. He would not now enlarge upon the difficulties which had arisen upon this point during the last five or six years—difficulties beyond those, perhaps, which had been apparent to the House. At the present moment, certain plans had been sent by the Government to the Trustees for lodging the Natural History collection separate from the other collections. Of those plans one was approved by the Trustees as being the most suitable, but the Government, on consideration, thought that another would be better amalgamated with the first, and that question would be determined at a conference which would take place next week, between the Trustees and the Chief Commissioner of Works. He hoped and believed that the Committee would not object to the Vote which he had the honour to propose, and next year he trusted that the new Parliament would take in hand the all-important question of additional space for the proper exhibition of these collections, and that the Government would be ready with plans which might receive the sanction of the House.

MR. AYRTON

thought that the Trustees were be wrapped in the affairs of antiquity that they neglected considerations applicable to the present day. It would be much better if, instead of directing their attention to collecting the remains of the Mausoleum, they would turn it to the relations of the Museum to the British public. It was undoubtedly desirable that the Museum should be a choice collection, interesting to persons of high education, and gifted with a knowledge of art; but it was also desirable that the Museum should interest comparatively uneducated people, and unfortunately the Trustees kept it shut during that part of the day when the largest number of people could alone visit it. He wished to know whether the Trustees could not arrange for the opening of the Museum in the evening, as was done at South Kensington. He could not understand why they should have one Department of the Government declaring that it was quite practicable to open for public view collections in the evening without risk, and another Department declaring that such a proceeding was fraught with the utmost danger. He should be glad to know whether the Trustees of the British Museum had considered this matter during the past year, and he also desired to learn whether they had taken any steps to secure ground around the British Museum from the ground landlord so as to admit of the extension of the building in future. It was to be deplored that the question had remained open so long, because the sooner it was dealt with the greater would be the economy to the public, and the nobleman to whom the property in that neighbourhood belonged would, no doubt, be prepared, if properly approached, to deal with the matter as one of national interest and in a way becoming his high station. Any immediate sacrifice in giving ground for the extension of the British Museum would in the end have the effect of generally improving the value of the adjoining land.

MR. GREGORY

wished to know if the Government intended to propose any plan or to take any steps whatever to remove the Natural History collection from Blooms-bury to some other place. As to the question of duplicates, Mr. Panizzi was of opinion that in respect to books there were but very few, and there were objections to part with them, and he (Mr. Gregory) would not, therefore, raise any question as to them; but as regarded the duplicates of works of art and antiquities the Museums of Dublin and Edinburgh, and, indeed, others in the United Kingdom, would be glad to profit by them. This was not only his own opinion, for Professor Owen had distinctly told him that he could make up from the chaos of specimens now in the British Museum collections which would be extremely valuable to local institutions in the country. As far as Dublin was con- cerned, he knew they would be received with thankfulness. If the Royal Dublin Society was not considered a national institution these specimens might be lent to it, or if sufficiently national handed over to it, and the general advantage would he so great that he should be glad to know if the Government since he had last mentioned the subject had taken it into consideration. The articles discovered in Camirus were numerous and interesting, and specimens would he thankfully received by the local institution.

MR. WATKIN

said, it was a somewhat startling fact that notwithstanding the increase of the population of London and the greater influx of strangers, the number of visitors to the British Museum appeared to be falling off. He thought it was incumbent on the Government and the Trustees to show that this arose from no want of proper accommodation. In 1859 the total number admitted to view the general collection, exclusive of readers, was 517,000; in 1860 it was 536,000; in 1861 the number was 641,000; in 1862, which was an exceptional year, as it was the period of the Great Exhibition, the number was 895,000; but in 1863 and 1864 it was only 440,000 and 432,000 respectively. Those figures showed that there must be some reason why only so small a portion of the people resorted to so useful and glorious an institution. With respect to the working classes, it was only those out of employment that could visit the British Museum during the hours it was open, and to the employed working people the place was practically closed. Surely there might be arrangements made whereby the admission of the working classes might he made real instead of nominal.

SIR HARRY VERNEY

said, he would be extremely glad to hear that the Government would take into consideration the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets. If property were taken for the increase of the British Museum the houses might be let until their space was wanted. There would thus be no immediate loss; and he also thought that the question should be considered whether the British Museum might not be opened at hours when the working classes of the metropolis could visit the admirable collections which it contained.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, that with respect to the question of opening the British Museum at evening hours, when it might become a place of general resort for the working classes, he was bound to declare that too much responsibility ought not to be laid on the Trustees of the British Museum. He considered that the duties of a body like the Trustees had much more reference to the general good government and discipline of the institution, to the progressiv extension of its collections, and to the improvement of the general rules on the present basis for the admission of the public, than to the introduction of any fundamental change or reconstruction of the system at a large expense to the public. He did not say this in order to make light of the observations of the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton), for he frankly owned that the more he considered the question of opening these public institutions the more he was driven towards—he did not say to, but towards—the conclusion that evening openings involved not a portion but the whole of the subject as regards the mass of the population. The great collections of the country could hardly be said to exist for the great mass of the population. On the other hand, the question was a very large one. It was not merely a question of a certain addition to the present establishments, but it involved considerations of the greatest importance with regard to the improvements which might be requisite in the building, both there, at the National Gallery, and elsewhere, in order to give complete security to the collections in the event of their being opened in the evening. It was not the British Museum only that was concerned, but likewise other public institutions; and it would become necessary to have the matter very carefully examined by Parliament to ascertain what measures and what expense would be needed to secure to the mass of the population of London that great boon—a boon which did not involve so much the extension of the Museum as their admission to it, because it amounted at present very much to a question of their practical exclusion. The hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets wished to know whether any overtures had been made to the Duke of Bedford with a view to the enlargement of the Museum on its present site. His hon. Friend was exceedingly sanguine on that subject, and took a rather romantic view of the position of that nobleman. His Grace, however, and those who managed his estates, must be aware not only that that question had been in agitation for many years, but that one of the main reasons for the abandonment some time ago of the idea of an indefinite extension of the institution on the present site was the great cost of the ground, and that a body of the Trustees which considered the matter framed an Estimate which put the expense of such an extension at about £50,000 per acre for the land. These facts being notorious they had certainly no indication of any disposition on the part of the great neighbouring proprietor to accept less than the fair market price for his land if required for the purposes of the British Museum. Nor, indeed, had the public the smallest claim upon him to do so. True, his hon. Friend thought the extension of the Museum would enhance the value of the rest of his Grace's adjacent property; but that was only an opinion, the truth of which was not at all self-evident. At any rate, if the House decided that there should be a large addition to the British Museum on the present site, they must not assume that they would be able to purchase the ground under the exceptionally favourable circumstances imagined by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets. But the question was not one that could be wisely opened at that moment; and, moreover, he was inclined to be altogether sceptical as to the doctrine intimated on that and other occasions by his hon. Friend—namely, that, in the case of an establishment like the British Museum, originally of moderate dimensions, and comprising a great many branches, some of them not bound by any very natural or close relations to each other, no matter what might be the increased population or the altered circumstances of that metropolis, they were to go on making vast and indefinite extensions on the present site. He was not going back to any question about South Kensington, which was not then before them. They had contracted engagements as to South Kensington, and at the proper time the House would have to consider whether any and what measures should be taken in respect to those engagements. But he now contested the doctrine of an indefinite extension of that institution on that one spot, and thought it extremely doubtful whether by that plan they would give the greatest command of those collections to the vast and growing population of London and to the increasing stream of visitors constantly flowing into it. He did not believe it would be right to say to the people of that metropolis and the public generally, "Whatever facilities of access or otherwise may be given to another site which may not be partaken of by the present site, whatever may be the future extension of London—an extension which, though long begun, is probably far from ended—whatever changes time may produce, we shall tie you down to this particular spot, and if you want to see an establishment containing antiquities, works of art, and specimens of natural history, hither shall you come, and hither only, be your place of abode three, or five, or seven miles distant." The principle of diffusion, reasonably applied, within certain proper and well defined limits, appeared to him on the face of it a more rational principle than that laid down by his hon. Friend. With regard to the question put by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) as to whether it was in the power of the Government to submit a proposal to the House for affording increased accommodation for the Natural History Collection, the Department over which his right hon. Friend near him (Mr. Cowper) presided had not yet been able to arrive, in communication with the Trustees of the Museum, at such an understanding with reference to any building to be erected on a new site as would justify the Government in coming with plans before the House. It might be possible, physically speaking, for them to do so before the present Session ended; hut he did not think it would he convenient to have a question of that kind decided at any period except when the House was fully attended, and able to give it that amount of attention which it undoubtedly required. They had not made any overtures to the Duke of Bedford, and he was very doubtful about the expediency of making them. A plan by which the Government should purchase property covered with houses and remain the owner or lessor of those houses, applying from time to time such portions of their sites as might be thought fit for the purposes of the British Museum, was one of the worst species of administrative arrangements he had ever heard proposed. Whatever plausible arguments might be urged in its favour would not stop with the case of the British Museum; but if the Government were to become speculators in house property, buying up houses before it actually wanted them, in order to get them cheaper there would not be ten, or twenty, or even fifty instances only in which they would have to consider the application of that principle. No doubt the State might often make economical investments of that kind; but he did not think it desirable that it should assume the position of temporary landlord without having a fit organization for discharging such duties. In his opinion the best and wisest course was for the Government, as a general rule, to buy the land which it wanted and at the time when it wanted it. With respect to the figures adduced by the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Watkin) as to the decreasing attendance at the British Museum, he confessed that they were not without significance in another point of view besides that from which the hon. Gentleman had quoted them; but the fact that there was such a falling off in the numbers resorting to that institution at a period when the Trustees were showing every anxiety to improve the general arrangements for the convenience of the public, and when, moreover, the visitors to the metropolis were increasing in a rapid ratio from year to year, in his mind did something to qualify the very sanguine estimates formed by some hon. Gentlemen as to the paramount and extraordinary advantages of the present site of that establishment.

MR. WALPOLE

said, he entirely concurred in what had fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the inexpediency of bringing forward at the end of an expiring Parliament any plan for the decision of the important question as to the future distribution and management of the collections at the Museum, which must raise a good deal of discussion. The Government, he thought, had acted wisely in postponing the consideration of what should be the mode of providing that accommodation until the commencement of next Parliament. Meanwhile, he hoped the Trustees and the Government would arrive at some definite plan. Whatever his own individual opinion might be, he should feel it his duty to support the plan which might be agreed upon by the Trustees. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had very naturally returned to the charge which he has often made before—namely, that the working classes in the metropolis should be enabled to see more of the collections at the Museum than they could now do. Similar observations had been made the other night with respect to the National Gallery, and the Chief Commissioner of Works then made what he (Mr. Walpole) thought a very sensible, pertinent, and forcible observation, which was equally applicable to the British Museum. He did not despair, he said, among all the improvements going on in this age, that means might be found to prevent the deleterious effects of the effluvium from gas; but till those means had been discovered he thought the Trustees would be guilty of a breach of duty if they consented to expose the valuable collections intrusted to their care to such peril as it was admitted they would incur by being exhibited in gas light. Nor is it to be forgotten that the risks of fire would be dangerously increased. The time might arrive when they would be enabled to reduce these risks to a minimum, and he should then be extremely glad if the hon. Member's views could be realized with safety. He must also warn the House, that if the Museum were lit by gas, they would have to consider the necessity of doubling the expense. His own notion was that, looking to the early closing movement on Saturday, and the holyday usually taken on Monday by many of the working artizans, arrangements might be made on those two days for more effectually enabling such persons as were employed in hard labour during the greater part of the week to go and see the Museum than they could by opening it on the Sunday evening, or at a later hour on weekday evenings. Three or four years ago the experiment was tried of keeping open the Museum till eight o'clock on Saturday night in the belief that great numbers would attend; hut the failure was complete, and it was not worth while to continue the experiment. With respect to opening the Museum on Sunday, this was not the time for offering any opinion upon it. That was a question for the House to determine, in connection with a variety of important considerations which could not be overlooked. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory) had referred to the subject of duplicates, a matter undoubtedly of very great importance. The hon. Member said we had got plenty of duplicates; but the fact was that if by duplicates were meant identical articles, we had hardly any duplicates at all. There might, perhaps, be some duplicate volumes of books; but not so many as would at first sight appear. The supposed duplicates are often new editions; and it was of paramount importance to possess all the editions of interesting works, and the National Museum was the proper place where they ought to be collected. With regard to duplicates of sculpture we had very few of them; none of the fine works. There were, however, a good many things that might, perhaps, be parted with. The difficulty in doing so was the stringent character of the present Acts of Parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer would, he hoped, turn his mind to this point, namely, how far it would be advantageous to alter the present Acts so as to give, within certain limits, greater power of exchanging, selling, or parting with duplicates, or with things which were not wanted. That would be a very proper question to take up in connection with a Bill having reference to the management of the collections in the Museum. He did not know that he had omitted to notice any topic which had been suggested, and he hoped the House would now accede to the Vote.

Vote agreed to.