The British Public and the British MuseumShaping and Sharing Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century

A radical reinstatement of the public in the history of the formation of the ‘modern’ museum

• Assesses over 65,000 nineteenth-century newspaper articles, in both national and regional papers, to assemble a picture of the public perception of the British Museum
• Brings together literary studies, museum studies, art history, and the history of science
• Uses the history of nineteenth-century museums to address pressing current concerns including decolonisation and repatriation

This book is a timely intervention in the history of museums in Britain. BP’s ongoing sponsorship of the British Museum, the appointment of George Osborne as a trustee and the Museum’s continued resistance to the repatriation of holdings such as the Parthenon Marbles and the Benin Bronzes have brought questions of the Museum’s funding, leadership and right to the objects in its collection to increased public attention. The book reveals this is not a recent ‘woke’ agenda but rather part of a long history of public resistance and activism enacted through the British Museum. It presents a cultural history of the nineteenth-century British Museum, departing from traditional institutional histories by centring public perception of the museum’s purpose and its uses in society.