The Museums of India

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Sir Sydney Frank Markham (19 October 1897-13 October 1975) was a British politician who represented three constituencies, each on behalf of a different party, in Parliament.

Born in Stony Stratford, he left school at the age of fourteen. Following service in France, Greece and Mesopotamia during the First World War, he was awarded a commission, and left the Army in 1921. He studied at Wadham College, Oxford and then became an assistant to Sir Sidney Lee with his work on Shakespeare. He later became Secretary, then President, of the Museums Association.

Harold Hargreaves (born 29 May 1876) was a British Indian archaeologist who served as Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) from 1928 to 1931. Hargreaves specialized in Buddhist iconography and served as headmaster of the Government High School in Amritsar before joining the Archaeological Survey of India.

Between 1910 and 1912, Hargreaves officiated as Superintendent of the Frontier Circle when the then Superintendent, Buddhist scholar Aurel Stein had been to England on deputation. When the serving Superintendent of the Northern Circle, J. Ph. Vogel resigned from the survey, Hargreaves was transferred to the Northern Circle to fill in his post. During his tenure in the Northern Circle, Hargreaves visited the mounds at Harappa, Rajanpur and Sarnath and participated in the excavations at Harappa under John Marshall.

Hargreaves returned to the Frontier Circle a few years later and carried out excavations at Sohr Damb area near Naal, Balochistan in South Western province of Pakistan in May 1924.[1] He was made Deputy Director General of the ASI and in 1928, succeeded John Marshall as Director General.

The following Survey of the Museums and Art Galleries of India is based upon personal visits to all the Museums and Art Galleries mentioned, with the exception of Dacca and one or two of the smaller collections. We wish to take this opportunity of thanking the Government of India, the Provincial Governments, the Rulers of the States and particularly the officers and officials of the institutions mentioned, for the very considerable help they have given to us. Throughout the whole of India we have received nothing but the greatest possible courtesy, and we welcome this opportunity of expressing our very warmest thanks. To the authorities in Singapore, Colombo and Batavia, we wish to extend a similar appreciation of their kindness.

This Survey and Directory would not have been possible but for the generous financial assistance provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Previous grants from this source had enabled the Museums Associa- tion to publish detailed Reports and Directories of the Museums of the Dominions and Colonies, and the present publication brings to a close a survey which, in its scope, has few parallels in the history of the British Empire. In the last six or seven years, nearly 2,000 museums have been visited in connection with these surveys (the grant for the British Survey of 1927-28 was made by the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust), and there is now available not only a complete series of Directories of Museums and Art Galleries for all parts of the British Empire, but also critical reports on every phase of museum activity, of which this is the last, but, we trust, not the least important, of the series.

Throughout the whole of this Report, as in previous Reports, the term "Museum" or "Art Gallery" extends only to those collections which are available to the public, although for purposes of comparison and completeness of record, University Museums and others which are open to certain sections only of the public have been included. Museums, however, which are used solely as teaching collections for students and are not generally accessible to even a section of the public, such as those at Khalsa College, Amritsar, and the Prince of Wales Medical College, Patna, have been excluded.