James Delbourgo

Collecting the World: Hans Sloan and the Origins of the British Museum

Wed, 11/15/2017 - 4:00pm
Event
Location:
Instruction & Training 1312

A public lecture by James Delbourgo (Rutgers University).

In 1759 London’s British Museum opened its doors for the first time – the first free national public museum in the world. But how did it come into being? This talk recounts the overlooked yet colorful life of the museum’s founder: Sir Hans Sloane. Born in 1660, Sloane amassed a fortune as a London society physician, became president of the Royal Society and Royal College of Physicians, and assembled an encyclopedic collection of specimens and objects – the most famous cabinet of curiosities of its time – which became the foundation of the British Museum. Slavery and empire played crucial roles in his career. Sloane worked in Jamaica as a plantation doctor and made collections throughout the island with help from planters and slaves. On his return to London, he established a network of agents to supply him with objects of all kinds from Asia, the Americas and beyond: plants and animals, books and manuscripts, a shoe made of human skin, the head of an Arctic walrus, slaves’ banjos, magical amulets, Buddhist shrines, copies of the Qur’ān and more. The little-known life of one of the Enlightenment’s most controversial luminaries provides a new story about the beginnings of public museums through their origins in encyclopedic universalism, imperialism and slavery.

The lecture is based on Delbourgo’s new biography of Sloane entitled Collecting the World.

The event is free and open to the public.

Co-sponsored by the UCSB History Department and the UCSB Library.