Captain Fowke’s plan.
The plans of the various competitors were submitted to Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Works, who awarded prizes to three of the number, giving precedence to that of Captain Francis Fowke, R.E., and then referred the three selected plans to the Trustees of the British Museum. As the internal arrangements in Captain Fowke’s plan did not meet with the approval of the Museum officers, he was desired to modify them in conformity with the requirements of the Trustees, and was engaged in this labour when his death occurred, in September, 1865.
Mr. Waterhouse engaged.
Early in the year 1866, Mr. Alfred Waterhouse was invited by the Chief Commissioner of Works to take up the unfinished work of Captain Fowke, but found himself unable to complete the plan to his own satisfaction. In February, 1868, he was accordingly commissioned to form a fresh design, embodying the requirements of the officers of the Natural History Departments of the Museum.
Mr. Waterhouse was not long in submitting to the Trustees his plan and model of the building, with a disposition of galleries as required, and these were formally accepted by the Trustees in April, 1868. It was not, however, until February 1871 that the working plans had been thoroughly considered, and had received the final approval of the Trustees.
Completion of building and removal of Collections.
The actual work of erection commenced in the year 1873, and the building was handed over to the Trustees of the British Museum by Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Works in the month of June, 1880. As soon as the exhibition-cases were completed, and the galleries sufficiently dry to receive the collections, the labour of removing the Natural History Collection from Bloomsbury was begun. The departments of Geology, Mineralogy, and Botany were arranged in their respective sections of the Museum in the course of the year 1880, and the portion of the Museum which contained these departments was first opened to the public on April 18th, 1881. It was not until the following year that the cases destined to receive the larger collections of the Zoological Department were sufficiently near completion to allow of these collections following, and three more years were required before all the galleries could be brought into a state fitted for public exhibition.
Description of the building.
The following description of the structure was contributed by Mr. Waterhouse:—
“The New Natural History Museum will, from its position, always be more or less identified with the International Exhibition of 1862, which occupied the whole of the site between the Horticultural Gardens and Cromwell Road. It was at one time thought that a portion, at any rate, of the Exhibition buildings could with advantage have been converted into a Museum of Natural History. Parliament, however, decided against the preservation of any part of these buildings, and they were accordingly entirely removed.