Sir John Soane’s Museum

The museum was established during Soane’s own lifetime by a Private Act of Parliament in 1833, which took effect on Soane’s death in 1837. The Act required that No. 13 be maintained “as nearly as possible” as it was left at the time of Soane’s death, and that has largely been done. The Act was necessary because Sir John had a living direct male heir, his son George, with whom he had had a “lifelong feud” due to George’s debts, refusal to engage in a trade, and his marriage, of which Sir John disapproved. He also wrote an “anonymous, defamatory piece for the Sunday papers about Sir John, calling him a cheat, a charlatan and a copyist”. Since under contemporary inheritance law George would have been able to lay claim to Sir John’s property on his death, Sir John engaged in a lengthy parliamentary campaign to disinherit his son via a private Act, setting out to “reverse the fundamental laws of hereditary succession”. according to some. The Soane Museum Act was passed in April 1833 and stipulated that on Soane’s death his house and collections would pass into the care of a Board of Trustees, on behalf of the nation, and that they should be preserved as nearly as possible exactly as they were left at his death.