British museum

The British Museum in London is one of the world's largest and most important museums of human history and culture. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects from all continents, illustrate and document the story of human culture from its beginning to the present. As with all other national museums and art galleries in Britain, the Museum charges no admission fee, although charges are levied for some temporary special exhibitions.

It was established in 1753 and was based largely on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions.

Though principally a museum of cultural art objects and antiquities today, the British Museum was founded as a ‘universal museum’. This is reflected in the first bequest by Sir Hans Sloane, comprising some 40,000 printed books, 7,000 manuscripts, extensive natural history specimens, prints by Albrecht Dürer and antiquities from Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Middle and Far East and the Americas. The Foundation Act, passed on 7 June 1753, added two other libraries to the Sloane collection. The Cottonian Library, assembled by Sir Robert Cotton, dated back to Elizabethan times and the Harleian library was the collection of the first and second Earls of Oxford. They were joined in 1757 by the Royal Library assembled by various British monarchs. Together these four ‘Foundation collections’ include many of the most treasured books in the British Library, including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf.

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories. It alone has parliamentary sovereignty. At its head is the Sovereign.

The parliament is bicameral, with an upper house, the House of Lords, and a lower house, the House of Commons. The House of Lords includes two different types of members: the Lords Spiritual (the senior bishops of the Church of England) and the Lords Temporal (members of the Peerage); its members are not elected by the population at large. The House of Commons is a democratically elected chamber. The two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Palace of Westminster (commonly known as the ‘Houses of Parliament’), in the City of Westminster in London. By constitutional convention, all government ministers, including the Prime Minister, are members of the House of Commons or House of Lords.

Parliament evolved from the early Medieval councils that advised the sovereigns of England and Scotland. In theory, power is vested not in Parliament, but in the ‘Queen-in-Parliament’ (or ‘King-in-Parliament’). The Queen-in-Parliament is often said to be a completely sovereign authority, though such a position is debatable. In modern times, real power is vested in the House of Commons; the Sovereign acts only as a figurehead and the powers of the House of Lords are greatly limited.

The United Kingdom Parliament is sometimes called the ‘Mother of Parliaments’, as the legislative bodies of many states, most notably those of the members of the Commonwealth; are modelled on it.

In the Middle Ages and early modern period there were three kingdoms within the British Isles — England, Scotland and Ireland — and these developed separate parliaments. The 1707 Acts of Union brought England and Scotland together under the Parliament of Great Britain, and the 1800 Act of Union included Ireland under the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

At the head of Parliament is the British Sovereign. The Sovereign's role, however, is merely ceremonial; in practice, he or she always acts on the advice of the Prime Minister and other ministers, who are in turn accountable to the two Houses of Parliament.