P. R. Harris This is a celebration of the Reading Room which was built in 1854-57. It was however preceded

Literary Recollections and Sketches

 (London, 1893), pp. 72-3.

9

  Ibid., pp. 26-7.

---

6

The Reading Room in Literature

eBLJ 2019,  Article 5

out of the Museum […] in order to escape Mr Panizzi’s ‘company’. In consequence of 

the Duchess of Gloucester’s death, Prince Albert did not come, which, I suppose, was a 

sad disappointment to him. I heard afterwards […] that about thirty carriages of Visitors 

were present, and that they had ices, etc., in the New Reading Room […] It was wholly 

a private party of Mr P’s, as I rightly interpreted it, and I rejoice much I had nothing to 

do with it.  9 May. The New Reading Room, the South half of the King’s Library and a 

passage through my Department were opened to the Public; and this is to continue ’till the 

16th inclusive.  The crowd was very great and the noise and dash such, combined with the 

draft [

sic

] occasioned by the open doors, as to make the Saloon of my Department quite 

unbearable.  16 May.  Went into the New Reading Room, where Mr P. pointed out to me the 

arrangements he had made connected with the delivery of MSS etc.  In common civility he 

ought to have consulted me before these arrangements were carried into effect.  I shall see 

on Monday how they work.  This was the last day that this Room and the passage through 

my Department was [

sic

] open to the Public, and the crowd was very great.  The dust, noise 

and smell of the ‘great unwashed’ were terrible.

10

Although others had suggested building in the quadrangle at the heart of the British Museum 

building, it was Panizzi who with characteristic energy and persistence pushed the plan through.  

His initial sketch was dated 18 April 1852, construction began in May 1854, and the Reading 

Room opened in May 1857.

It immediately became one of the marvels of London and Thackeray expressed the general 

approval in an article in the 

Cornhill

 for February 1860.

Most Londoners – not all – have seen the British Museum Library. I speak 

à coeur ouvert

 

and pray the kindly reader to bear with me.

11

 I have seen all sorts of domes of Peters and 

Pauls, Sophia, Pantheon, – what not? – and have been struck by none of them so much 

as by that catholic dome in Bloomsbury, under which our million volumes are housed.  

What peace, what love, what truth, what beauty, what happiness for all, what generous 

kindness for you and me, are here spread out! It seems to me one cannot sit down in that 

place without a heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my grace at the table, 

and to have thanked heaven for this my English birth-right, freely to partake of these 

bountiful books, and speak the truth I find there.

12

It was in the 1860s that the Keeper of Printed Books was involved in an incident which 

caused him grave concern.  It was discovered that one of the reference books had been damaged, 

and the Keeper reported to the Trustees that he had reason to believe that readers took books to 

the WCs, where they had every opportunity to mutilate them. The pages were so roughly torn 

out that they were obviously not taken for the information in them. He left it to the appalled 

imagination of the reader of the report to determine to what purposes the torn-out leaves had 

been put.

Jerome K. Jerome’s account of his visit to the Reading Room in the 1880s will ring bells with 

all those who have been unwise enough to consult a medical dictionary.

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight 

ailment of which I had a touch – hay fever, I fancy it was.  I got down the book, and read 

all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began 

to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged 

into – some fearful devastating scourge, I know – and, before I had glanced half through 

10

  Sir Frederick Madden, 

Diary

, 1857.

11

  I speak … bear with me] crossed through.

12

  Thackeray, ‘Nil Nisi Bonum’ in