British Museum receives major donation

Unexpected windfall in England’s capital: The British Museum in London has received a substantial donation from a wealthy benefactor. The British Museum announced yesterday, Sunday, that Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover had pledged the remarkable sum of £25 million (about €30.3 million) in support of the museum’s art galleries. Good news, then, following the turbulent events at the end of August 2010, when the British Museum had to be evacuated (as we reported).

The British Museum’s donor in London: no stranger in Britain

The funds will be used to expand the exhibition spaces and preserve precious exhibits. The generous donor, Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, is the former chairman of a nationwide supermarket chain with stores across the country, founded by his family. Lord Sainsbury, who once travelled on the London Underground to run his supermarket chain, entered politics in 1997. He served under Prime Minister Tony Blair as Minister for Science and Innovation and is said to have donated around £16 million to the Labour Party.

Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover has thus emerged as a generous patron of one of the world’s most famous museums, renowned for its cultural history and archaeological galleries. Neither the British Museum nor any other museum in Britain had received a donation of this size for a long time. According to the English newspaper the “Sunday Times,” the last major donation was made in 1985/86, when Sir Paul Getty gave more than £20 million to the National Gallery and £40 million to the British Film Institute.