16 years between the laying of the foundation stone in 1982 and the opening in 1998. The explains the delay: "The reason it has taken so long to build ... has relatively little to do with the competence, or otherwise, of architect and contractors. The project has been toyed with by successive governments. The building was designed for a different site in Bloomsbury. Time was wasted when it had to be redesigned to fit the eventual site alongside St Pancras Station. Successive governments have trimmed the budget. Each time they have done so, Colin St John Wilson and his team have had to redesign parts of the building."
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
British Library
Commemorated ati
British Library- Foundation Stone
The British Library H.R.H. The Prince of Wales unveiled this stone 7 Decembe...
Opening of the British Library
This inscription is opposite the entrance, below the Shakespeare statue.
This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
British Library
Creations i
British Library - Anne Frank
The tree itself is almost entirely lost, half buried in a modern planting sch...
Other Subjects
International Exhibition + RHS Garden, South Ken
Under the direction of Prince Albert the profits of the 1851 Great Exhibition were used to purchase land in South Kensington for cultural and educational use. Most of the northern half was, 1861-88...
1 memorial
Major Ernest Edward Austen, DSO
Ernest Edward Austen was born in 1867 in Dalston, Middlesex (now Greater London), the eldest of the five children of Ambrose Austen (1838-1924) and Eliza Burnet Austen née Smith (1839-1916). His bi...
War served, Other war
1 memorial
Pumphouse Educational Trust and Museum
The museum is located on land that until 1970 was part of the Surrey Docks. After these closed, the area was refurbished and the old pumphouse became a museum. It also houses the Rotherhithe Herita...
1 memorial
Sir Ashton Lever
Natural history collector. Born at the family seat near Manchester where he also died. His museum was at Leicester House on the northern side of Leicester Square and called the Holophusikon, or Hol...
1 memorial
Henry Buxton Forman
Born Camden Place, Southampton Street, Camberwell. Bibliographer and forger. An authority on the lives and works of Shelley and Keats. He also had a lifelong career in the Post Office and was award...
Person, Journalism / Publishing, Literature, Museums / Libraries, Politics & Administration
1 memorial
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