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The building that is now Tate Britain was opened in 1897. Its site was by the River Thames on Millbank a slightly out of the way area of central London. The site had previously been occupied by a large prison. Its official title then was the National Gallery of British Art and as such it was the fulfilment of the dream of the collector and sugar magnate, Henry Tate, who paid for the building and endowed it with his own collection of British art. Almost immediately it became popularly known as the Tate Gallery, a title officially confirmed in 1932. This was necessary not least because in 1917 the Gallery had been given the additional responsibility of forming a national collection of international modern art, thus ceasing to be exclusively the National Gallery of British Art.
Originally occupying only a small part of its site, the Gallery continually expanded to accommodate the growth of its twin collections. The final quarter of the site was filled in 1979 and the Gallery then took over the redundant military hospital across the street to the east, together with the street. This new space permitted the building of the Clore Gallery for the Turner Collection, opened in 1987, which finally provided proper housing for the Turner Bequest of 300 oil paintings and many thousands of watercolours by Britain's great Romantic artist, JMW Turner. Some of the hospital buildings were listed for preservation and became office accomodation, thus freeing up space in the original building.
By about 1990 it had become clear to the Tate that its collection of British and international modern art had greatly outgrown the building, and indeed the possibilities of the whole site on Millbank. Even the creation of two regional Tate galleries, Tate Liverpool in 1988 and Tate St Ives in 1993 did not solve the problem. It was decided to create a new gallery in London and to display in it the international modern component of the Tate Collection. This became Tate Modern, which opened in the year 2000. The beauty of this scheme was that the building on Millbank could once again become the national gallery of British art, to be known as Tate Britain, thus reverting to Henry Tate's original dream and finally fulfilling it. In preparation for this a major rebuilding of the north-west quarter of the Gallery was undertaken, creating a new entrance and spaces for temporary exhibitions as well as new galleries for the display of the Collection. At the same time the Hyman Kreitman Research Centre was created to bring together and make accessible the Tate Library and Archive.
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