British Museum

===Scholarship and legacies (1875–1900)===
The natural history collections were an integral part of the British Museum until their removal to the new British Museum of Natural History in 1887, nowadays the [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]] in [[South Kensington]]. With the departure and the completion of the new White Wing (fronting Montague Street) in 1884, more space was available for antiquities and [[ethnography]] and the library could further expand. This was a time of innovation as electric lighting was introduced in the Reading Room and exhibition galleries.<ref>{{cite news| title=The Electric Light in the British Museum| work=[[The New York Times]]| date=18 December 1879| url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1879/12/18/80703696.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1879/12/18/80703696.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live| access-date=15 January 2016}}</ref>

The [[William Burges]] collection of [[armoury]] was bequeathed to the museum in 1881. In 1882, the museum was involved in the establishment of the independent [[Egypt Exploration Fund]] (now Society) the first British body to carry out research in Egypt. A bequest from Miss Emma Turner in 1892 financed excavations in Cyprus. In 1897 the death of the great collector and curator, [[Augustus Wollaston Franks|A. W. Franks]], was followed by an immense bequest of 3,300 [[Ring (finger)|finger rings]], 153 drinking vessels, 512 pieces of continental porcelain, 1,500 [[netsuke]], 850 [[inro]], over 30,000 [[bookplates]] and miscellaneous items of jewellery and plate, among them the [[Oxus Treasure]].<ref>Caygill, Marjorie (2006). ''The British Museum: 250 Years''. London: The British Museum Press, p. 5.</ref>

In 1898 [[Ferdinand James von Rothschild|Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild]] bequeathed the [[Waddesdon Bequest]], the glittering contents from his New Smoking Room at [[Waddesdon Manor]]. This consisted of almost 300 pieces of ''[[objets d'art]] et de vertu'' which included exquisite examples of jewellery, plate, enamel, carvings, glass and [[maiolica]], among them the [[Holy Thorn Reliquary]], probably created in the 1390s in Paris for [[John, Duke of Berry]]. The collection was in the tradition of a ''[[Schatzkammer]]'' such as those formed by the [[Renaissance]] princes of Europe.<ref name="rothschild">{{cite web| title=Creating a Great Museum: Early Collectors and The British Museum| first=Marjorie| last=Caygill| publisher=Fathom| url=http://www.fathom.com/course/21701728/session4.html| access-date=13 November 2007| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071006091742/http://www.fathom.com/course/21701728/session4.html| archive-date=6 October 2007| df=dmy-all}}</ref> Baron Ferdinand's will was most specific, and failure to observe the terms would make it void, the collection should be
{{blockquote|placed in a special room to be called the Waddesdon Bequest Room separate and apart from the other contents of the Museum and thenceforth for ever thereafter, keep the same in such room or in some other room to be substituted for it.<ref name="rothschild"/>}} These terms are still observed, and the collection occupies room 2a.