It’s #SirDavidAttenborough ‘s 98th birthday today! A former Trustee of British Museum , here he is with #KingCharlesIII at an event at the Museum in the 1980s. Happy Birthday Sir David! #BritishMuseum #archive

#Archive30 #WhyArchives British Museum #archive is vast & of exceptional importance. Without it we wouldn’t know about our history or the history of the collection: who visited the reading rooms, records of our collection & history of our building #britishmuseum

#Archive30 #PopularItem This lovely early 20th C plan showing the arrangement of the #library collection of the British Museum in the Round Reading Room has been very popular recently! #britishlibrary #BritishMuseum #archive British Library

#Archive30 #Museums and #ArchivesForAll British Museum founded in 1753 & 1st public museum in the world,was free to all from the start. But in 1810 the Trustees abandoned the restrictive (free & much maligned) ticketing system & invited people in to wander freely. #BritishMuseum

#Archive 30 #Archive Advice British Museum Trustees & Principal Librarian often gave advice: on not tipping staff, on what not to wear to work, on where not to feed the cats & on Suffragettes visiting. #BritishMuseum #Archive

#Archive30 #BusinessArchives We have lots of #printedephemera in British Museum #archive & some relates to businesses operating in #London in the 18th & 19th centuries. These 3 are for: R Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, Hayman’s Maredant Drops & Coade’s Stone #BritishMuseum

#Archive30 #SportingArchive British Museum set up its #football team after WWI. Trustees gave permission in 1921 to use the field at Colindale Newspaper repository in Hendon, along with permission for Hendon Council to use it as a playground for children #BritishMuseum #archive

#Archive30 #SomethingScary British Museum was sometimes unable to open because of the denseness #TheFog as shown here in the 1920s & 30s. The problem was no electricity supply on Sundays, which made #BritishMuseum too dark & scary for visitors! #Archives

#Archive30 #HealthArchives In 1896 British Museum Trustees approved the payment of costs for a member of staff who lived ‘in’ - he sent his daughter to the Fever Hospital at their request to protect visiting members of the public from infectious disease. #BritishMuseum #archive

#Archive30 For today’s theme of #SomethingSmall - this tiny scrap of paper from 1723 is a request by Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection founded British Museum 30 years later, for payment of a bill. We don’t know what the bill was for though! #archive #britishmuseum

#Archive30 #ArchiveTravel British Museum had its own #Tube Station from 1900-33 (©️London Transport Museum ) & had a further association with #LondonUnderground #Tube after using its tunnels for safe storage in #WWII #archive #BritishMuseum

#Archive30 There is a vast amount of correspondence in the #archive British Museum & we’re making progress with sorting, re-packaging & re-shelving it into better archive storage to protect it for the future. #preservation #ConservationWin #BritishMuseum

#Archive30 #ArchiveObject We have several objects in the British Museum #archive including an impression of the #BritishMuseum seal, designs for uniform badges from 1972 along with #buttons from the Windsor uniform, & a 19th C #stereoscopic #photo viewer

#Archive30 #ArchiveFashion The formal British Museum #uniform for warders on special occasions was known as the Windsor Uniform, shown here at the opening of the 1972 #Tutankhamun exhibition in the presence of #QueenElizabethII . We’ve got one in the #archive too! #BritishMuseum

#Archive30 #ArchiveAnimals #animals have always been well-represented British Museum - in the collection until the 1880s (now Natural History Museum), sculptures on the building (up close to the pediment), lions in the TE Lawrence #archive & the famous #britishmuseum #cats #nhm_london

#Archive30 #SomethingBig The #GreatCourt British Museum is the biggest covered square in Europe. Originally open to the elements, #QueenElizabethII opened it in Dec 2000. Designed by Foster + Partners, its roof comprises 3312 individual panes of glass #BritishMuseum #archive

#Archive30 #ArchiveBuildings British Museum #archive has a large collection of items relating to its buildings over the years: illustrations in newspapers & periodicals, drawings & engravings, & photos going back to the 1840s & many plans. #BritishMuseum #LondonHistory

#Archive30 #UnusualArchives British Museum #archive holds quite a few unusual items like this very large phase plan of an #archaeological #excavation in the 1980s, sketches from 1920s #scrapbooks , old signs about #cats & a viewer for 19th C #stereoscopic #photos #britishmuseum

#Archive30 #HiddenHistories It’s little known that #architect #SirCharlesBarry , famous for his role in rebuilding #HousesofParliament also submitted a design for British Museum reading room. Here is his plan & some of the Trustees’ objections to it. #BritishMuseum #archive

#Archive30 #ArchiveCollection British Museum #archive relates not only to its own collection but also to the collections of British Library & Natural History Museum Here is the layout for books in Montagu House in 18th C, Zoological Gallery in 1845, Quad before the Gt Court & WWII damage.