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

by James Delbourgo

Winner of the Leo Gershoy Award
Winner of the Louis Gottschalk Prize
A Times Book of the Week
A Guardian Book of the Week

"A wonderfully intelligent book."
--Linda Colley

"A superb biography--humane, judicious and as passionately curious as Sloane himself."
--Times Literary Supplement

When the British Museum opened its doors in 1759, it was the first free national public museum in the world. Collecting the World tells the story of the eccentric collector whose thirst for universal knowledge brought it into being.

A man of insatiable curiosity and wide-ranging interests, Hans Sloane assembled a collection of antiquities, oddities, and artifacts from around the British Empire. It became the most famous cabinet of curiosities of its time. With few curbs on his passion, he established a network of agents to supply him with objects from China, India, the Caribbean, and beyond. Wampum beads, rare manuscripts, a shoe made of human skin: nothing was off limits, regardless of its human cost. The first biography of Sloane based on his complete writings, Collecting the World portrays one of the Enlightenment's most original and controversial luminaries.

"Engrossing...situates Sloane within the welter of intellectual and political crosscurrents that marked his times."
--New York Times Book Review

"A magnificent scholarly coup and an enthralling read... It conveys the excitement of original research as well as the thrill of tracking exotic curiosities to their source."
--Sunday Times

"This book is a fitting tribute to [Sloane's] contradiction-riven life. Collecting the World is about the torment of slavery, and it's about buttered muffins and about snakes shot on boats. It teaches us about how we know, how we organize and discipline our knowledge."
--New Republic

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Science, History Of Science, Natural History, Nature

544 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2017

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting if somewhat haphazard intellectual history of Hans Sloane rather than a straightforward biography. Sloane's own approach to collecting 'curiosities' was random and opportunistic rather than structured and methodical, and Delbourgo's book follows a similar organisation. Even while the author tries to impose some order in his chapters, he also allows the kinds of digressions that reflect Sloane's 'Natural History', a cornucopia-style volume taking its lead from Pliny's Historia Naturalis. For Sloane, mathematical instruments jostle alongside seals, starfish and salts, and he is interested in collecting and cataloguing objects rather than analysing them or the cultures from which they spring and within which they're given value: Sloane is what would later be known as a dilettante rather than a specialist.

He's also quite a troubling man especially in relation to his responses to slavery: he accompanies the British governor of Jamaica to that island, witnesses not just the slave-ships bringing abducted Africans to Jamaica to work the British sugar plantations but also the extreme brutality of the slave regimes, yet can coolly record what he terms 'exquisite torments' (slaves being burned alive from their extremities up to their heads) without any emotion or any interest in the anti-slavery debates that existed alongside the institution.

The final chapter looks at how Sloane's diverse collection became the original heart of the British Museum. An enlightening read though my interests waned in the central chapters following Sloane's collections of flora and fauna. There are places where this feels a little naive in its writing but overall an interesting slant on issues of knowledge and empire.

[Aatif Rashid · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully detailed history of Hans Sloane, physician and naturalist whose varied collections of plants, insects, objects, and manuscripts became the foundation for the British Museum. What's great here is the way the author so effectively incorporates Sloane's actual diaries and writings into the text, so that by the end I felt like I could hear the wonderful rhythms of his early-18th century voice. The book's style also effectively mimics Sloane's own epistemology, presenting his collections as long and sometimes exhausting lists of objects and specimens that don't always seem to have a clear connection but that reflect the way in which Sloane himself saw the world:

"Sloane was thus content to accumulate rather than theorize, at least to begin with. It would fall to specialists like Ray and later on Linnaeus to frame new taxonomies of plants and animals by genus and species. Sloane, meanwhile, saw his task as more fundamental: gathering thousands of fragments as the very building blocks for reinterpreting the order of nature, a colossal jigsaw that had to be assembled with great patience. His was a collection that did not immediately add up to a new big picture of the world — and that was as it should be."

[Amanda Witt]

A very interesting read about the man who collected artifacts when in Jamaica, and got others to collect for him, then after his death, his huge collection became what is now known as the British museum.

[Thornton Rigg · Rating 4 out of 5]

… enjoyable, fascinating history …

Hans Sloane, the eighteenth century doctor, plantation owner and natural historian was wealthy and committed enough to amass the largest collection of artefacts in England, if not the entire world. After his death, the collection went on to become the foundation stones of the British Museum.

Entertaining and informative, James Delbourgo‘s biography, Collecting the World. The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane is a delightful read. James is a Professor of Science History at Rutgers University and his enthusiastic and thoughtful style is just right for such a complex and fascinating history as this. James steers his way through the social niceties of who was allowed to see (or even taste!) his collection to the harsh realities of the slave trade, from the vast and complex network of correspondents to Hans’ dream of a universal knowledge of God’s creation.

My only slight quibble was the lack of detail over his marriage to the wealthy widow, Elizabeth, their children or his extended family. These were only mentioned in relation to the collection and I would have liked to know a little more to complete the picture. As the focus is on the man and his collection, I suppose this side of the story could be justifiably dropped.

Given my fascination with Wunderkammer, I was particularly interested in the opening section where James lays out the history of these Curiosity Cabinets – the generous footnotes and references should keep me going for the Summer!

Highly recommended.

If your appetite has been roused, I’ve come across an online exhibition: Voyage to the Islands, Hans Sloane, Slavery and Scientific Travel in the Caribbean in which James Delourgo uses items from John Carter Brown Library based in Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.

This is my fifteenth review in the British Books Challenge 2017. Come and join us at over at Chelley Toy’s site.

Cover design moment: The beautiful and satisfying design using period engravings is by Richard Green, who is name checked on the flyleaf.

Collecting the World. The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane by James Delbourgo was published by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, on 15th June 2017.

[Stephanie Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book about the man whose collections, essentially, formed the basis for the British Museum and Natural History Museums. Whatever one may think about the ethics of museums these days, and in particular the repatriation of antiquities, this is a really interesting perspective on the mindset of the early collectors. It also features the history of late Stuart/early Georgian England (and the colonies) which I found interesting when viewed through the perspective of one man's obsessive collecting.

If I have one fault with the book, it is that I read the hardback copy which proved really heavy. However, the fun I had reading the book meant that I persevered!

[Catherine Boardman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sir Hans Sloane; the man who created the British Museum, the man who rose from humble Irish origins to be the Kings surgeon, the man who owned the land on which Sloane Square stands. An interesting man with an interesting life.

I wanted to love this book, sad to say that I plodded through it. Interested enough to get to the end but gripped enough not to fall asleep after four pages.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collecting the World: Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum is about physician and botanist Hans Sloane of England who launched a life-long career in collecting that began for the most part with a trip to Jamaica in 1687. Sloan’s collection was the foundation for the British Museum, which opened in 1759, six years after Sloan’s death. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, not only did it provide a glimpse into the controversies and scandals behind the founding of one of the first public museums in the West (given the purchase of the collection and building were funded by a public lottery), but it’s also about the nature of collecting botanical specimens, and other cultural artifacts. I’ve always struggled with the British Museum’s claim that they are a universal museum--a keeper of world heritage (this is part of their rationale for holding onto the controversial Elgin Marbles), but after reading of the museum’s history beginning with Sloan who followed Francis Bacon’s values of the 16th century which was to collect in order to establish scientific knowledge for the good of Britain and science in general (also in light of competing nations at the time, mainly Spain), I see where it's rooted.

Sloan’s motivations though went further than collecting for mankind or Britain; he is described by some as a pompous and vain man concerned with fame and money. Even though he was famous in Britain and his reputation brought collections and artifacts to him from around the world because of his notoriety (he even had a brand of hot chocolate named after him). Sloan’s critics, vocal in newspaper, journals and other public platforms claimed he was collecting primarily for fame and fortune. An Irish poet, Laetitia Pilkington after meeting Sloan in person wrote he was a "‘conceited, ridiculous, imperious, an old fool’ whose reputation for judgement and philanthropy accounted to little more than the power of his enormous wealth" (pg. 291).

What the book also offers is insight into the history of the concept of museums which stems from the 'cabinet of curiosities' phenomenon. The cabinet of curiosities featured mostly artifacts of the natural world. Some other museums I hadn’t realized went back so far in time; the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford, which opened in 1683, the Capitoline Museum of Rome, opened in 1734 and the Hermitage museum of Russia which began in 1764 (founded by Catherine the Great), and opened to the public in 1852.

A really phenomenal book that’s not just about the British Museum, but the history of scientific collecting and display of artifacts that’s led to the concept of museums as we know them today. A worthy read.

[Laura Madsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting biography of Sir Hans Sloane, a 17th-18th century London physician/botanist whose extensive collections formed the basis for the British Museum. From a museum studies standpoint, he is at once a hero as the inventor of the public museum, but also a monster, as a large part of his personal wealth came from Jamaican sugar plantations where he bought and used enslaved humans. His will stated, "I do hereby declare, that it is my desire and intention, that my said museum or collection be visited and seen by all persons desirous of seeing and viewing the same and rendered as useful as possible, as well towards satisfying the desire of the curious, as for the improvement, knowledge and information of all persons." How do we decolonize museums when they were literally built on slavery?

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confession: this took a ridiculously long time to finish because it weighed so much. I've gotten so used to reading on a kindle that a big fat hardcover is hard to handle: you can't read it in bed at night for fear you'll doze off and it will fall on your nose and break it. That said, it was an excellent overview of British global ambitions, both scientific and commercial, in the first half of the 18th century.

[Bea Yeung · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book - I am so very drawn to the notion of collecting but boy oh boy is this book a bore. In an attempt to appease everybody - this book takes a middle stance and does not take a hard stance on anything at all. Its too wishywashy which is honestly probably a testament to who Sloane is as a person.

There are other resources to learn from out there. Sloane is definitely important to history but let's find other medias to consume from.

[Gillian Haigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book very packed full of info. A bit longer than it needed to be and felt it stranded between an academic and wider audience. The massive list of citations (a third of the total volume) made it heavy (literally) bedtime reading. Overall an important book but maybe trying to do too many things.

[Herbert]

Fascinating. But almost like a textbook. Told me more than I wanted to know. So couldn't finish & font too small. Should be on "Overdrive" = Library consortium for free Kindle downloads.

[Thom DeLair]

Delbourgo meticulously assembles and curates the life and times of soggy meat patty, Sir Hans Sloan, into a monumental slog. The first two chapters cover young Sloan's adventurous days of humble origins in Ulster and his continental education and then to his work over sees as a physician on a Jamaican plantation. The following chapters see the man from his many aspects in London: Sloan the public personality both marveled at and chastised by the snide London satirists , Sloan the cataloguer of countless curious objects, Sloan the agent with vast contacts around the world who deliver him exotic samples, and Sloan the gracious host who shows off his vast collection to many ladies and gentlemen of enlightened society.

I was under the impression the book would say something of Sloan's legacy in helping to change the public imagination in 18th century England from parochial to global. The book doesn't go that far, but it does say much in the last chapter about how the knowledge stored in his collection was part of a political and social dimension in Britain and its development through modernity.