ABSTRACT
In July 1927 a Royal Commission on National Museums and Galleries was set up by Royal Warrant to ‘enquire into and report on the legal position, organisation, accommodation, the structural condition of building, and general cost of the institutions containing the national collections situate in London and in Edinburgh’. The Royal Commission was chaired by Viscount D’Abernon. The other 10 members included Sir Henry Miers, who later became President of the Museums Association, and was working at that time on what became known as the Miers Report on non-national museums, published in 1928. The Commissioners were faced with a formidable task, with some 20 institutions to investigate and with terms of reference which covered every aspect of museums. In September 1928 they published an Interim Report (Miers, 1928) drawing attention to the urgent accommodation defects in some of the national museum buildings. The recommendations made were endorsed in their entirety by the Government.
