"Local trail: A walk around Bloomsbury with Sir Hans Sloane" (ressources for teachers)

British Museum

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• Arts

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• Publié par: Fil_Culture
• Publié le: 11 septembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 72
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

©National Portrait Gallery, London
Outside Montagu House Inside Montagu House Bedford House
Bedford House was built Te British Museum Te British Museum
in the 1660s by the Earl
Te frst building to house the British Te British Museum in Montagu House
of Southampton, when
Museum collection was Montagu opened to the public in 1759 with small
Bloomsbury was mainly
House. It was purchased by the groups admitted for a conducted tour.
felds. It was originally called
museum’s trustees in 1755 from the But the tour was less about sharing
Southampton House, but then
heirs of the Duke of Montagu, a friend information, than satisfying the curiosity
it was inherited by the Duke
of Sir Hans Sloane. Sloane’s collection of visitors by seeing the strange specimens
of Bedford. It was renowned in
of c.71,000 objects formed the basis and exotic objects from Sir Hans Sloane’s
Georgian times for the quality
of the museum’s collection. Montagu collection. Go in to the British Museum
of its design. Te house was
House was fnally demolished in to see the Enlightenment Gallery which
demolished in 1800. It’s garden
1840s and the current building was displays some of Sloane’s collection.
became Russell Square.
constructed.
Circular Route
Start anywhere taking
in Great Russell Street,
Southampton Row,
Bloomsbury Way and
Museum Street.
3 Bloomsbury Place
Sir Hans Sloane lived at 3 Bloomsbury
Place for most of his life until he moved
to Chelsea in 1742. It was from here
that he practised medicine. Sloane
treated poor patients for free. However,
rich people had to pay. Sloane kept his
collection here too. Can you see the blue
plaque to Sloane here?
St George’s Church - Inside
Hello, my name is Both rich and poor parishioners
Sir Hans Sloane worshipped at St George’s. To avoid
getting too close to the poor, rich and I lived in
parishioners, like the Dukes of Bedford
Bloomsbury and Montagu, preferred to worship in the
in the early galleries. Sir Hans Sloane, who was also a
vestryman at St George’s, had a pew in the eighteenth
south gallery too.century. Come with
me on a tour of the area and I will
show you what it was like living
here and tell you a little about my
extraordinary life.
Acknowledgements
Tis trail was researched, written and designed by Year
5 pupils from Holy Trinity C of E Primary School
in 2012. Tey were helped by historian Katie Potter,
writer Michael McMillan and designer Sav Kyriacou.
Tanks are due to Katharine Hoare, Education
Manager at the British Museum; Pamela Forde,
Archive Manager at the Royal College of Physicians;
Bloomsbury SquareSt George’s Church - Bloomsbury MarketTudor Allen, Senior Ofcer at Camden Local Studies
and Archives and Frank Macey, volunteer at St Outside Bloomsbury Square was frst Te market is now long gone
George’s Bloomsbury. known as Southampton but, in Sir Hans Sloane’s time, St George’s Bloomsbury was Special thanks are also due to the Heritage Lottery Square. In early Georgian Bloomsbury Market was a very designed by architect Nicholas Fund, which provided grant funding for the London
times, Bloomsbury Square was busy and flthy place. Te market Hawksmoor. It was opened in Borough of Camden to run the Healing Histories
thought one of the fnest parts was also quite a dangerous project, of which this Hans Sloane Trail is one element. 1730. Te church is instantly
of London, partly because place. Numerous accounts of recognisable, as it has an unusual All images are ©Trustees of the British Museum
of its good air. However, it robberies exist and punishments except where indicated. We recommend using the steeple showing George I in a toga.
was also a popular place for included deportation to the British Museum’s online collection search to fnd more It also has a lion and a unicorn on
duellists and later became the colonies or even death. Tis artefacts collected by Sloane and many others. it, both fghting for the crown. Te
scene of a destructive riot. was the fate of William Harper, lion represents England and the
Tere is a garden dedicated to sentenced to death in 1733, for unicorn represents Scotland.
Sloane in this square.pickpocketing.
Healing Histories
A W
A
lk
A
round
Bl
ooms
B
ur
y
with Sir Hans Sloane©Royal College of Physicians
©Royal College of Physicians
3 Bloomsbury Place Outside - Montagu House (below)
My collection must have attracted unwanted Tis is my house at 3 Bloomsbury Place. I rise early at 6 Moving along Great Russell Street, we come to A dA y in the life of
attention, because some men: John Shirly, Phillip o’clock and I am fttingly dressed for a busy day. Before Montagu House, which had felds behind where Sir Hans Sloane
10 o’clock this morning, I was visited by an African Wake, James Walters and a few others started a fre at robberies and murders took place. Please do not trespass
my front door and tried to rob us, under the pretence woman and gave her my services for free as I do for My name is Sir Hans Sloane and I was born in 1660 in onto the farm of the two sisters wearing riding habits
that they would help remove our possessions and many of the poor, who would otherwise go ill because and men’s hats. Children have been known to have the Killyleagh, County Down, northern Ireland. As a boy
my valuable collection to safety. But they were soon they can not aford to pay the fees we physicians have I saw local people eating edible seaweed to cure scurvy strings of their kites cut and their clothes stolen if they
caught, charged and sentenced at the Old Bailey for to charge wealthy plums. She told me that she had and as a teenager I was severely ill for three years. Afer decide to bathe there.
been a slave in Jamaica, an island in the West Indies, their crime. I was just as upset about this incident as studying in London and Paris, I eventually became When I passed away in 1753, I bequeathed my collection
when the composer George Frideric Handel visited but was brought to England to be a house servant by physician to George I and George II. Yes, I lived a long of books, manuscripts, natural specimens and antiquities
my house and placed a buttered mufn on one of my a gentleman who had made a fortune from his sugar time: ninety two years. Tough I am famous for treating to King George II for the nation in return for payment of
precious books. Can you believe the audacity! plantations. I was reminded of my two years in Jamaica royalty, I would like you to follow me on this trail back £20,000 for my heirs. Tis created the British Museum,
as a young man, working as physician for the Duke of to the 18th Century to fnd out more about where From Jamaica, I also brought back Peruvian Bark, which was originally in Montagu House. Some of
Albemarle, the new governor of the island and even I lived and worked, and a few other things I am also containing quinine to treat malaria, and a new recipe my collection later helped create the Natural History
treating the infamous ex-buccaneer, Sir Henry Morgan, famous for. Now please do not walk too fast; I am an for mixing chocolate, milk and Museum and the British Library.
who later became Lt-Governor of the island. I saw old man and ill in health. sugar, which have both been
enslaved Africans like this woman labouring on a sugar lucrative.
plantation, which was owned by Fulke Rose, whose To the African woman I said,
widow, Elizabeth, would later become my wife. Apart ‘I advise you to do what I
from other inheritances, a third of the income from practise myself. I never take
his sugar plantations helped me to move into physic when I am well and
this house in fashionable Bloomsbury. when I am ill, I take a little
In Jamaica, I also became and only such as has been well
curious studying and describing tried.’ I prescribed her my milk
several plants, animals and chocolate recipe, because afer
insects and brought back 800 Bloomsbury Square (above) Bedford House (above centre)observing her symptoms, it
specimens that also included slave objects, would be light on the stomach Outside my house across the road is Bloomsbury Moving up alongside Bloomsbury Square, towards
such as the instruments these enslaved and good to consume. Square, the frst square in London, where some said where Bedford Place is now, we come to
peoples produced their music with. My dear that ‘Foreign princes were taken to the square as one of where Bedford House, a grand Georgian Before leaving the house, my next appointment is
late wife and my daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah, Inside – Montagu Housethe wonders in London’ because the houses you could mansion stood, home of my dear friend the with the diarist Samuel Pepys. He complains that he has
do not share my lifelong passion for collecting objects Montagu House was later demolished to create a see were fne examples of Georgian architecture. In to pay, but he is well of unlike the poor woman I saw Duke of Bedford. Near here a gruesome
that has enabled me, and that rude Carl Linneaus, a larger building, which you now see. I am particularly 1713, a mob rioted in this very square, with houses set earlier. I sent him on his way to the dispensary of the murder took place in my time and
greater scientifc understand