If natural history was the key to the birth of the British Museum, then the rise of imperialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries accounted for its growth. As Britain competed with European powers in nation building, museums in capital cities became expressions of national and imperial power. France was first and soon after the Revolution restyled the Royal Botanic Garden as the National Museum of Natural History.

The development of the British Museum was less dramatic. Hans Sloane's collections were gradually added to, and by mid-century the British Museum had been transformed into a storehouse of imperial treasures advertising its colonial possessions. In 1881 a new building was established in South Kensington to house the burgeoning natural history collections. No one could fail to be impressed with Waterhouse's gothic temple to science that incorporated biological symbolism into the design of the museum. The effect of the Romanesque arcades and Baroque staircases with cast-iron columns and glass roof was likened to a railway station and spawned imitators around the world. The London Science Museum has its roots in the Great Exhibition of 1851 when international displays of technology became popular as trade fairs and promotional displays.

Increasingly recast as educational institutions, instructing the observer while at the same time morally improving him, questions of purpose, organisation and display emerged as central concerns. Curators were forced to develop collections that answered the needs of diverse social groups. Museums were expected to serve the growing middle classes who had more wealth and leisure than ever before. They wanted both education and amusement. By the 20th century the 'less is more' philosophy in museum displays was found to be more instructive, and the remaining inventories of specimens would be reserved for scientific investigators. The conflict between the two aims of research and popular education remain a vexed problem for museum administrators everywhere.

'History is other people's junk', a sign in the CheckPoint Charlie Museum in Berlin reads. Fortunately the Victorian obsessions with 'junk' associated with archaeology, anthropology and Empire and natural history resulted in 'cathedrals to science'. Of course the order has moved on. Unadorned functionalism lacking any scale or grandeur was the 20th century vogue. New exhibitions of science and technology deploying new interactive electronic gadgetry equate progress with technological change. The spectre of the modern museum visitor as cyborg, part human part machine, is also with us. The information age has given rise to 'virtual collections' and 'virtual museums'. How this developing technology will determine the future role of museums remains to be seen.

References:
J. V. Pickstone, Ways of Knowing, Manchester University Press (2000)
Sharon Macdonald, editorial, Science as Culture vol 5 (1992)
Susan Sheets-Pyenson, Cathedrals of Science, McGill Queens University Press (1988)
The Natural History Museum
The British Museum
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Content last updated: 25/07/2005

Dr. John Senior

Dr John Senior is a member of Linacre College, Oxford and tutors History of Science and Medicine. He is the former Director of the Bakken Library and Museum of Electricity in Life, Minneapolis.

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