Bristol Industrial Museum facts for kids
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The Bristol Industrial Museum was a cool place in Bristol, England. It was located right by the Floating Harbour on Prince's Wharf. This museum showed off many amazing things from Bristol's past, like old planes, cars, buses, and printing machines. It also shared stories about Bristol's history with ships and the sea.
The museum was looked after by Bristol City Council. They also managed other old industrial items nearby, such as the Bristol Harbour Railway, big cranes, and a small group of old boats. These trains, cranes, and boats are now part of the M Shed Museum, where you can see them working!
The Bristol Industrial Museum closed its doors on October 29, 2006. A brand new museum called M Shed was built in the same spot, keeping the original building's front. M Shed opened on June 17, 2011, and still has many of the old museum's exhibits.
If you want to learn more about the old museum and its memories, you can visit this website: http://bristolindustrialmuseum.epizy.com/
Contents
Exploring the Museum's Collections
The museum's indoor exhibits were set up on two floors inside an old building that used to be a storage shed by the docks.
Road Transport Gallery
On the ground floor, you could find the transport gallery. This area showed off different ways people traveled on land, with a special focus on Bristol's own history. Some cool things you could see included:
- What is thought to be the world's first special caravan made for holidays! You could compare it to a caravan from the 1950s.
- The Grenville steam carriage, an old vehicle powered by steam.
- Different bicycles, motorcycles, cars, carriages, and buses.
Aviation Gallery
Upstairs, the aviation gallery told the exciting story of how Bristol was involved in making aircraft. This section had:
- A collection of aero engines made in Bristol.
- A helicopter also built in Bristol.
- A pretend cockpit of the famous Concorde plane, where you could imagine flying!
- Small models showing the many different planes built in the city.
On the same floor, you could also learn about the Port of Bristol (Bristol's busy harbor). This story was told with models, paintings, and other interesting items.
Print & Pack Gallery
Next to the aviation area was the Print & Pack gallery. This part of the museum showed how printing was one of Bristol's biggest industries. It had:
- Real printing machines, like the Linotype and Letterpress.
- Live demonstrations where you could see these machines working! It was a very popular part of the museum.
- These same machines even printed many of the museum's own leaflets, tickets, and flyers.
Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery Gallery
Another important gallery in the museum was called Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery. This exhibit shared the history of Bristol's connection to the trade of enslaved people across the Atlantic Ocean. It covered the story from its early days, through the time when slavery was ended, and up to more recent times.
Historic Ships, Cranes, and Trains
Outside the museum, right in front of where the new M Shed now stands, you could find a collection of historic vessels. These included:
- The 1934 fireboat "Pyronaut", which was used to put out fires on the water.
- Two tugboats: the John King, a diesel tug built in 1935, and the Mayflower, which is the world's oldest surviving steam tug, built way back in 1861!
On the dockside outside the museum, there are also four large electric cargo cranes. These were built in 1951. A little further west, you can see a much older crane, the only working example of a Fairbairn steam crane. This amazing crane was built in 1878 and was used regularly until 1973 to load and unload ships and trains with very heavy items (up to 35 tons!). It has been fixed up and still works today, sometimes operating on special holidays and during the Bristol Harbour Festival.
The Bristol Harbour Railway also offers fun train rides along the quayside on bank holidays. They use restored steam locomotives and old train cars.
