Enlightening the British. Knowledge, discovery and the museum in the eighteenth century * Enlightenment. Discovering the world in the eighteenth century

Abstract

R. G. W. Anderson, M. L. Caygill, A. G. MacGregor and L. Syson (eds.), Enlightening the British. Knowledge, discovery and the museum in the eighteenth century . London, British Museum Press, 2003. ISBN 071–415010–X. 195 pp., 89 b. & w. illus. £35. Kim Sloan with Andrew Burnett, Enlightenment. Discovering the world in the eighteenth century. London, British Museum Press, 2003. ISBN 071–412765–5. 304 pp., 263 col. and b. & w. illus. £29.95. The early British Museum was like the traditional bear – malleable – waiting to be licked into shape. It is one of the virtues of the papers presented to the conference which celebrated its 250th anniversary, here collected in Enlightening the British , that some of these possibilities are displayed to us: ‘might the British Museum have developed into a proto-Royal Institution or even, perhaps, a Science Museum?’ asks Robert Anderson. To this question Lisa Jardine's paper implies a negative answer. Her suggestion that crucial scientific input from the Royal Society and Robert Hooke has been erased from the Museum's history fails to find substantiation from the two pages of notes which buttress her three pages of text but the reminder it contains of Hooke's role as architect of Montagu House is valuable. Even more so is Debora Meijers' demonstration that the British Museum could have developed along the lines of the European universal, taxonomically arranged collection, since this was a model with which Sloane was familiar. Equally interesting is her point that in establishing a trustee-controlled museum Sloane created a uniquely British form of museum management.