London's Museums in 1900

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Arthur H. Beavan conducted the following survey of London's museums in Imperial London, published in 1901:

To go the round of the London museums used to be considered, in the nineteenth century, the bounden duty of every right-minded boy or girl home for the holidays, and many a parent or self-sacrificing uncle or aunt has endured a silent martyrdom, not less acute than that of their youthful charges, as they tramped along miles of stuffy ill-lighted galleries gazing at uninteresting objects in glass-cases, until soul and body gave way from sheer exhaustion; while at the close of their vacation, the feelings of the children who thus combined instruction with amusement, may be readily imagined.

In 1900, going these rounds was not so formidable an affair, as locomotion was much easier and great improvements had been made in the arrangement of the objects themselves; while the warming, lighting, and ventilation of the museums, not to speak of the resting-places provided for the weary sightseers therein, made it a pleasure for an intelligent adult to visit them.

The Missionary Museum Commencing with non-National Museums; in Moorfields, No. 14, Bloomfield Street, leading out of London Wall into Liverpool Street, was a museum, the "Missionary" (unknown to most Londoners), containing a miscellaneous collection of foreign curios periodically sent home by missionaries from every known portion of the globe, which became more valuable year by year, as developing nations learned more and more to discard their primitive but ingenious implements, etc., in favour of 'civilized' appliances.

Museum of Antiquities Behind the Guildhall was the splendid City and Corporation Museum of Antiquities.

Royal Architectural Museum Near Whitehall, at 18, Tufton Street, Dean's Yard, Westminster, was a little-known, but interesting museum, the Royal Architectural, containing a very complete collection of models and casts for the use of architectural students and stone-carvers.

It also had some fine replicas of antique statuary, Roman and Greek, including one or two that showed how in portraying the nude human figure, exactitude and decorum were really combined by sculptors of past ages.

Museum of Practical Geology For some unaccountable reason, the Museum of Practical Geology, connected with a Government Department called the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, had no entrance from Piccadilly, where it was conspicuous just opposite the St. James' Restaurant, but in Jermyn Street at the back.

It held a very important collection of British mineral products, fossils, ores, and examples of native marble, whose beauty was a revelation to even well-informed people.

Parkes Museum Then at 74a, Margaret Street, not a long walk from Jermyn Street, was the Parkes Museum, specially interesting to enthusiasts of Hygiene, as it was under the auspices of the Sanitary Institute, and all kinds of sanitary inventions, and well-nigh everything relating to health, could be studied there with the aid of a capital technical library belonging to it.

Across Exhibition Road was the Indian Museum, which included the remarkable Saracenic, Persian, Japanese, and Chinese collections; and the Science Museum with its attractive models of ships, marine engines, machinery, etc; but, being in 1900 in a state of transition, no definite account can be given of these museums.

To the north of the Science Galleries was the Imperial Institute, founded with great eclat by Royalty for the permanent collections of Colonial and Indian objects; but it does not appear to have fulfilled its purpose, and may be regarded as practically a failure.