On this day...15th January

British Museum opens

When Sir Hans Sloane died in 1753 he bequeathed the nation his "cabinet of curiosities" – more than 70,000 objects including his extensive library of some 40,000 books, on condition the not inconsiderable sum of £20,000 be paid to the executors of his estate.

It was a bargain at the price, culturally and financially. The Irish-born physician – and incidentally, the inventor of milk chocolate – had been an avid collector, and more than that he had been a collector of collections. To the Sloane collection were added two major libraries: the Harleian and the Cottonian, comprising volumes collected by, respectively, the Earls of Oxford and the Elizabethan politician and antiquarian Sir Robert Cotton.

Montagu House in Bloomsbury was purchased in 1754 to house the combined collections, but it was to be another five years before the general public were able to enter the hallowed halls for the first time, the great day being January 15 1759. Before this a further collection of books and manuscripts, the Royal Library, was added in 1757.

As Britain expanded her empire through the 18th and 19th centuries the British Museum was the natural repository for treasures 'gathered' by adventurers and soldiers across the globe. This greed for objects of significance is not of course without critics, and controversy still rages about such items as the Elgin Marbles housed there. Even within Britain there is debate about objects taken to the capital to the detriment of the regions whence they came.

Today there are more than 13 million objects housed in the museum, though it has been refined into a more cultural and artistic centre than it was originally – The Natural History Museum is an offshoot that took with it a huge number of exhibits, and, in 1997, the British Library was given its own building.

The question is – which is the nearest Tube station to the British Museum?

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