The third point which generally characterised Panizzi’s administration was one to which the attention of the Committee of 1835-36 was vigorously directed, and in reference to which it was of considerable service. The regulations for the admission of the public were illiberal. Visitors were excluded at the very times when they had most leisure to attend; but when, as Sir Henry Ellis remarked, “_the most mischievous part of the population was abroad_,” and in holiday weeks the Museum should be closed, “_because the place otherwise would really become unwholesome_.” The Committee, however, came to a different conclusion, and admitting that reforms were necessary, decided that the Museum was to cease to be a private establishment. But the immediate cause of the Commission in question was the unreasonable complaint of a discharged servant, a Mr. John Millard, employed for some time as supernumerary in the Department of MSS., who had lost his situation through inefficiency. He possessed, it was said, some influence with Lord Brougham, and Mr., afterwards Sir Benjamin Hawes, M.P. for Lambeth, was induced to take up his case, and obtain its investigation under cover of a general inquiry into the administration of the Museum. The Committee, as at first appointed, March 27, 1835, was inconveniently numerous, and when re-appointed in the following session its numbers were considerably curtailed. Mr. Hawes, a man of no great refinement, but of thorough business capacity, and an excellent specimen of the not unfrequent type of popular M.P., who begins as a patriot and ends as a placeman, represented the reforming element, together with Dr. Bowring and some other members of a similar stamp, who mostly disappeared after the first session. Lord Stanley (the late Lord Derby) and Sir Robert Inglis represented the interests of the Trustees. Sir Philip Egerton, Mr. Ridley Colbome, and Mr. Bingham Baring were also amongst the most prominent members, Mr. Sotheron Estcourt being chairman.
The administrative organisation of the Museum at the time was certainly better calculated to invite inquiry than to sustain it. The offices of the Principal Librarian and Secretary, instead of being united, as at present—and of which more hereafter—were divided, with very mischievous consequences as regarded the authority of the former officer, and attended by all the evils of divided responsibility. Sir H. Ellis was an excellent antiquary and a most kind-hearted man, but could never, under any circumstances, have been more than the nominal head of the Museum.