The transfer of the Banksian Collections to the Museum.
About the year 1825, negotiations were opened by the Trustees of the British Museum with Mr. Robert Brown, with the view of obtaining for the Public the immediate use of the Banksian Library and the other Collections, and, along with them, the public services of the eminent botanist under whose charge they then were. The then President of the Royal Society, Sir Humphrey Davy, acted for the Public in that negotiation; but some delays intervened, so that it was not brought to a close until nearly the end of the year 1827.
At that date, the transfer was effected. Mr. Brown became the head of the Botanical Department of the Museum, and his accession to the Staff added honour to the institution—in the eyes of all scientific Europe—as well as eminent advantage to the public service. Mr. Brown acted as Keeper until nearly the time of his decease. He died in the year 1858, full of years and of botanical fame.
The Library of Sir Joseph Banks comprised the finest collection of books on natural history which had ever been gathered into one whole in England. It was also pre-eminently rich in the transactions, generally, of learned societies in all parts of the world; and there is a masterly Catalogue of the Collection, by Jonas Dryander, which was printed, at Sir Joseph’s cost, in the years 1798–1800. |The Banksian Library.| That Catalogue, I venture to hope, will, some day, become—with due modification—the precedent for a printed Catalogue of the whole Museum Library—vast as it already is, and vaster as it must needs become before that day shall have arrived.
The Banksian Herbaria.
The Banksian Herbaria comprise Banks’ own botanical collections in his travels, and those of Cliffort, Hermann, Clayton, Aublet, Miller, Jacquier, and Loureiro, together with part of those made by Tournefort, the friend and fellow-botanizer of Sloane, and the author of the Corollarium. They also include many valuable plants gathered during those many English Voyages of Discovery which, from time to time, Banks’ example and his liberal encouragement so largely fostered. From the Collections now seen in the Botanical Room of the British Museum not a few of the great works of Linnæus, Gronovius, and other famous botanists, derived some of their best materials. These Collections are at present under the zealous and faithful care of Mr. John Joseph Bennett, long the assistant and the friend of Brown.
Brief notice of some other nearly contemporaneous accessions.
Among nearly contemporaneous accessions which would well merit some detailed notice, were the space for it available, are a valuable assemblage of Marbles from Persepolis, which had been collected by Sir Gore Ouseley, and were given to the Museum by the Collector, and a small but choice Collection of Minerals from the Hartz Mountains, given to the Public by King George the Fourth. The Persepolitan sculptures were received in the year 1825; the Minerals from the Hartzgebirge, in the year 1829.