| AdminHistory | When the natural history departments of the British Museum moved to South Kensington between 1880 and 1882, they brought with them little in the way of a central administration. Thomas Nichols, the first Assistant Secretary, and Charles Edward Fagan (1855-1921) who succeeded him in 1889, had only a small clerical staff to help them and had to deal with financial as well as personnel and establishments matters. Administratively they were placed in the 'Director's Office'. The prolonged ill health of Sir William Flower during 1896-1898 and E Ray Lankester's emphasis of scientific research at the expense of administration greatly added to the Assistant Secretary's work load. Following Lankester's enforced retirement at the end of 1907, Fagan virtually ran the Museum until Fletcher's appointment as Director nineteen months later.
Fagan was succeeded by George Frederick Herbert Smith (1872-1953) from the Department of Mineralogy in 1921, at which time he was assisted by a Staff Officer, five clerks and a shorthand typist. The British Museum Act, 1930, formally gave care and custody of the natural history departments to the Director of the British Museum (Natural History) and considerably increased the responsibilities of the head of the Museum's administration. In recognition of this the post was renamed Secretary and given a salary only slightly inferior to that of the Secretary of the British Museum. An Accountant, Thomas Wooddisse (b 1893), was appointed to take charge of financial matters, and he succeeded Smith in 1935. An Assistant Secretary was added to the staff in 1954.
By the time Arthur Percy Coleman (b 1922) was appointed Secretary in 1965 administrative staff numbered fifteen, and in 1976 the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) was set up with Raymond Saunders (b 1933) at its head as Museum Secretary and Establishment Officer and a staff of thirty five, including an Accountant and a Personnel Officer.
In 1994 the Front of House section was separated out to become the Department of Visitor Services, and DAS became the Department of Corporate Services (DCS). In 1997 it was decided that the Museum would be better served if the administration was not run by a single generalist administrator, but rather by senior professionals in the three main areas of Finance, Personnel (taking over the formal responsibilities of the Establishment Officer) and Estates, who would report to the Director. As a result, the following year DCS was replaced by three separate administrative departments: Finance, Human Resources and Estates.
HEADS OF THE MUSEUM ADMINISTRATION
Assistant Secretaries
Thomas Nichols 1880-1889
Charles Edward Fagan 1889-1921
George Frederick Herbert Smith 1921-1931
Secretaries
George Frederick Herbert Smith 1931-1935
Thomas Wooddisse 1935-1959
William Alexander Ferguson 1959-1965
Arthur Percy Coleman 1965-1976
Raymond Saunders 1976-1987
Cyrus Julian Edmund Legg 1987-1997 |