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A Â£700,000 auction of antiquities from the museum at Charterhouse, one of Britain's leading public schools, went ahead yesterday despite the protests of a former curator who branded the sale "immoral" and questioned the school's right to sell some artefacts. Dr Ian Mertling-Blake, a housemaster at Charterhouse for 16 years and curator from 1970-1994, believes that some items may only have been loaned to the museum by parents and old boys. "I am pretty certain some things were given on the understanding they should not be sold and that, if the museum collection was dispersed, it would be given to another museum," he said. Sotheby's, which handled the London sale, which realised a total of Â£702,367, well over twice that expected, said it had included only items where there was no doubt about the school's legal right to sell. The school said there was no suggestion that anything on offer had only been given on loan. But Dr Mertling-Blake said: "Benefactors deposited objects, or offered them on permanent loan, precisely and only because it was a museum" (The Telegraph via Museum Security List; more in H-Museum).