British Museum Opens to the Public

1759

In Montagu House, Bloomsbury, the British Museum unbolted its doors. Admission was free but visitors needed tickets and a parlor chaperone. Within a generation, the rule would relax and London shopkeepers would wander among Egyptian mummies, ancient medals, and Sloane's pickled curiosities. The museum's collection would grow relentlessly through empire, purchase, and donation until it held artifacts from every civilization the British encountered.