Further to Zachary Lesser's enquiry (9 Jun 1996) and the replies of Paddy Boylan
and Peter van Mensch it is worth recording two further points about the origin
of the Natural History Museum, London.

The original suggestion to separate the natural history collections at the
British Museum  appears to have come in 1847 from outside the Museum.  This was
made by the influencial politician and scholar Lord Francis Egerton who
suggested that they be transferred to the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College
of Surgeons (where Richard Owen was curator).  This was opposed by the Trustees
of the British Museum and from it arose the idea of a separate natural history
museum;  the British Association for the Advancement of Science, while anxious
to secure separate management of the natural history collections, did not, at
this point, favour a separate natural history museum.  Owen was appointed to the
new post of Superintendent of the Natural History Departments at the British
Museum in 1856.  The decision to move the collection did not come until the
1860s.

The Natural History Museum was opened to the public at South Kensington on
Easter Monday 1881 (18 April) after the botanical, geological and mineralogical
collections had been transferred; the zoological collections followed at least a
year later.

Geoffrey Lewis