1807: 47 George 3 session 2 c.36: An Act to enable the Trustees of the British Museum to exchange, sell, or dispose of such Parts of the Collections, and under such Restrictions as are therein specified.

[8th August 1807.]

Whereas amongst the several Collections and Additions thereto, which, from time to time, have been and may be placed in the British Museum, there now are, and hereafter may happen to be, some articles which are unfit to be preserved therein: and it would be beneficial for the said Institution, that the Trustees thereof should have power to select and dispose of such articles either by way of exchange or sale, so that such articles, or the produce thereof, be applied in obtaining other things, which may be wanting in, or proper for the said Museum: May it therefore please Your Majesty, that it may be enacted, and be it enacted by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same,

[Trustees, at a Special Meeting, may order any Articles in the British Museum to be exchanged or sold for the purchase of others.]

that it shall and may be lawful to and for the said Trustees and their successors, or any seven or more of them (the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Keeper, and the Speaker of the House of Commons for the time being, respectively, or any two of them being of the number) present at any meeting specially assembled for that purpose, to order that any articles in the said Museum, which they then adjudge to be unfit to be preserved therein, shall be exchanged for Manuscripts, Books, Medals, Coins, Statues, or any things more suited to the existing Collections and the nature of the Institution, or to direct the same to be sold or disposed of, and the money to arise by such sale to be laid out in the purchase of Manuscripts, Books, Medals, Coins, Statues, or other things, which may be wanting in, or proper for the said Museum, any former Act of Parliament or any other matter to the contrary thereof in anywise notwithstanding.

Source: Butterworths, Statutes of the United Kingdom, 1807.