Museum of London facts for kids
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The entrance area in 2019
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| Former name | London Museum |
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| Established | December 1976 |
| Location | 150 London Wall Barbican, London, EC2Y 5HN United Kingdom |
| Type | History museum |
| Collection size | 7,000,000 |
| Visitors | 141,835 (2021) |
| Public transit access | Barbican; St Paul's |
The Museum of London is a fascinating museum in London, England. It tells the story of the city from ancient times all the way to today. It focuses on how people lived and what life was like in London throughout history.
The museum was created in 1976. It brought together collections from two older museums: the Guildhall Museum and the London Museum. For many years, its main home was on London Wall, near the Barbican Centre. This area was rebuilt after being damaged in World War II.
In 2015, the museum announced exciting plans to move to a new, bigger location. This new home will be at the historic Smithfield Market. The old site was sometimes hard for visitors to find. The new site will be much larger, allowing more of the museum's amazing collection to be shown. The museum closed its London Wall site in December 2022. It plans to reopen in 2026 as the London Museum.
This museum has the largest collection of urban history objects in the world. It has over six million items! These include ancient tools, Roman statues, and even a famous collection of old jewelry called the Cheapside Hoard. The museum also collects modern items, like a giant lump of fat from the sewers (a "fatberg") or the "Trump baby blimp" balloon.
The Museum of London is part of a larger group. This group also includes the Museum of London Docklands, which is still open to visitors. It also includes Museum of London Archaeology, which helps discover ancient things underground. The museum is run and funded by the City of London Corporation and the Greater London Authority.
Contents
History of the London Museum
The Guildhall Museum: Early Days
One of the museums that joined to form the Museum of London was the Guildhall Museum. It started in 1826 when it received a gift of a Roman mosaic. The museum aimed to collect old things related to the City of London. As it grew, it moved into a room in the London Guildhall.
This museum mostly focused on Roman objects found in the city. It was not always open to the public. In 1872, it began to get its own special building. During World War II, the museum closed. It reopened in 1955, but this was not a permanent solution. By 1960, there were serious talks about joining with the London Museum.
The London Museum: From Palace to New Home
The Museum of London also got many of its items from the London Museum. This museum started in 1911 and was first located in Kensington Palace. It opened to the public in 1912.
In 1914, the museum moved to Lancaster House. Visitors could walk through the museum in order of time. They would see rooms for prehistoric times, Roman times, and medieval times. There was also a special Jewellery Room. Upstairs, there were rooms for later periods, like the Tudor and 17th-century eras. There was even a Costume Gallery. The museum also had a basement with larger items. These included a Roman boat and a carriage that belonged to the Duke of Wellington.
A director of the London Museum, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, suggested joining the London Museum with the Guildhall Museum way back in 1927. He thought this because both museums had similar collections. But the idea wasn't seriously considered until after both museums had to close during World War II.
After the war, the London Museum moved back to Kensington Palace in 1951. This new location also showed items in time order. But it also had special galleries for things like old shop fronts, prints, theatre costumes, and royal clothing. For example, it had costumes worn by famous actors and even Queen Victoria's dresses.
In 1960, a plan was made to combine the two museums. The government, the City of London Corporation, and the Greater London Council agreed to fund it together. A special law was passed in 1965 to make this happen. The City of London Corporation provided a new site near the Barbican Centre.
Museum of London: 1976 to 2022
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The new Museum of London opened in December 1976. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened it. The building was designed by architects Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya. They created a unique design where visitors followed one path through the museum. This path took them through London's history in order, from the very beginning to modern times.
The building also had a special window. This window looked out onto a remaining piece of London's old city wall, built by the Romans. Visitors would start their journey on the upper floor, learning about London's history up to the Great Fire of London in 1666. Then they would go downstairs to see how London changed up to the present day. The visit would often end with a view of the Lord Mayor's Gold State Coach.
In 2010, the museum completed a big update called the "Galleries of Modern London." This project cost £20 million. It covered the history of London from the 1670s to today. These galleries showed 7,000 objects. Some cool exhibits included a mummified cat, an old Art Deco lift from Selfridges department store, and a real 18th-century prison cell covered in graffiti.
The updated galleries included:
- Expanding City: This gallery covered London from 1670 to 1850.
- People's City: This section showed London from 1850 to the 1940s. It had real shop fronts and items from the suffragette movement.
- World City: This gallery displayed objects from the 1950s to today. It featured fashion from different decades, like Mary Quant dresses and punk outfits.
- City Gallery: Here, large windows allowed people outside to see the Lord Mayor of London's State Coach. This coach is used every November for the Lord Mayor's Show.
In 2014, the museum opened a new gallery. It displayed the cauldron from the 2012 Summer Olympics. This cauldron was made of 204 steel stems, each with a copper "petal." These petals could be raised to form the shape of a cauldron. The gallery showed many of these stems and videos of the cauldron in action.
Moving to Smithfield Market
In 2016, the museum announced its big move to West Smithfield. This new site uses old market buildings. The museum director, Sharon Ament, explained that the old building was hard to find. The new location will be much larger, growing from 17,000 to over 27,000 square meters.
Architects Stanton Williams and Asif Khan were chosen to design the new museum. The Smithfield site is very interesting. It has part of the Thameslink train line running underneath it. The museum hopes to create a see-through section of the tunnel. This would let visitors see trains go by and commuters glimpse inside the museum!
Another idea for the new museum is to bring back the ancient St Bartholomew’s Fair. This fair used to happen on the site in medieval times. The museum will also have spiral escalators. These will take visitors down to underground storage rooms, which will become the main history galleries.
In 2019, more plans were shared. Workers found the remains of an old Victorian café called the Temperance Cocoa Room. It still had its original tiles! The museum plans to reopen this as a café. The project was first expected to cost £250 million and open in 2021. Now, it's estimated to cost £337 million and open in 2026. The director said the higher cost is because it's difficult to work with such an old building.
In August 2022, a new freshwater spring was found under the site. Tests showed it was safe to drink. The museum hopes visitors will be able to fill their water bottles from it!
On December 4, 2022, the Museum of London closed its London Wall site. When the new museum opens in 2026, it will be called the London Museum. The old London Wall site will be returned to the City of London Corporation. There were plans for a music center there, but now the Corporation plans to demolish the building. They want to replace it with a new office block.
Museum Collections
The Museum of London holds about 7 million objects. These items cover 10,000 years of London's history! The collection includes objects from both the Guildhall Museum and the London Museum. It also has many new items the Museum of London has collected since the 1970s. Since then, the museum has gained more ancient finds and modern objects. These include photographs, spoken stories, and even video games.
The museum has so many objects about London's docks that it opened a second museum. This is the Museum of London Docklands, which opened in 2003.
Pre-Modern Collections
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The museum has over 13,000 prehistoric objects. Most of these are made of stone, like flint. Many were found during building work in London. The collection also includes items from the Bronze Age and Iron Age. These often came from dredging the River Thames. In 2019, the museum got the Havering Hoard. This is the largest Bronze Age treasure found in London. It has 453 bronze objects, like axe heads and spearheads.
The Roman collection has over 47,000 objects. Most are from the Roman parts of London. It has the UK's largest collection of Roman pottery. It also includes wall paintings, floors, metal items, and even leather "bikini bottoms." In 1954, a Roman temple to the god Mithras was found in London. The temple's stones have been rebuilt on their original site. The marble carvings found inside are now part of the museum's collection.
The museum has about 12,000 medieval objects. This includes 700 items from the Saxon period. Some were found by "mudlarks" on the banks of the River Thames. The medieval collection has everyday items like spades and belt buckles. It also has over 1,350 pewter pilgrim badges.
The museum holds over 1,500 pieces of Tudor and Stuart cutlery. Many of these were found in the Thames. One of the most famous items from this time is the Cheapside Hoard. This is a collection of almost 500 Tudor and Jacobean jewelry pieces. It was found in 1912. The entire hoard was shown in a special exhibition in 2013. In 2017, a large donation was made to help create a permanent display for the Cheapside Hoard at the new museum site.
Modern Collections
The museum collects decorative arts, like 18th-century glass, silver, and jewelry. It has pieces from London makers like James Powell and Sons. The museum also has porcelain from famous London factories. Many generous people have donated jewelry to the museum.
The museum's dress and textile collection is huge. It has 23,000 garments from the Tudor period to today. The London Museum was one of the first British museums to collect clothing. It focuses on clothes made or worn in London. The collection includes pieces by famous designers like Mary Quant and Vivienne Westwood. It also has royal clothing, theatre costumes, and banners from the women's suffrage campaign.
The museum has over 100,000 paintings, prints, and drawings. These are either by London artists or show London and its people. They include works by famous artists like Canaletto and Thomas Rowlandson. The collection also has portraits of important London figures. There are also many panoramic views of London. One popular example is the Rhinebeck Panorama. This 180-degree view from around 1806 shows London as if seen from a hot air balloon.
The Museum of London has collected about 150,000 photographs. These show everyday life in London. The oldest photo is from about 1845. The collection includes photos of London Underground construction and suffragette protests. It also has pictures by famous photographers like Bill Brandt.
The museum also collects objects about the social and working history of ordinary Londoners. This includes old shop fronts, food packaging, and even entire vehicles. It has a large collection of "penny toys," which were toys that cost just one penny. The museum also collects items related to London trades like clockmaking and silk-weaving. It has an important collection of suffragette materials.
Since the 1980s, the museum has been collecting "oral histories." These are over 5,000 hours of interviews with Londoners from the 20th and 21st centuries. They focus on stories about immigration and London's docks.
The collections include many items about London's port and the River Thames. Much of this is displayed at the Museum of London Docklands. This includes old boats and equipment for handling cargo. The Docklands site also hosts the Sainsbury Study Centre, which details the history of the supermarket chain. It also has archives for the Port of London Authority. These archives are popular with visitors researching their family history.
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One of the Museum's many artefacts from Roman London, dating from the 3rd century AD
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The museum's fantastical recreation of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens
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Interior of a Selfridges lift from 1928 in the former 20th-century section
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A printing press on display at the museum, with leaflets flying out
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Collecting Today's History
The museum continues to add to its collection. It often gets new objects related to current events. For example, it has a piece of the Whitechapel fatberg (a huge lump of fat from the sewers). It also has the Trump baby blimp, a giant inflatable balloon used in protests.
During the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the museum collected tweets using the hashtag #citizencurators. This helped capture public reactions to the games.
In 2018, the museum displayed a section of the Whitechapel fatberg. After being on show for several months, it was moved to a freezer. Fans could even view it 24/7 on a live webcam!
In 2019, the museum collected an old coffee stall called "Syd's." This stall had been on a London street corner since 1919. It will be displayed at the new Smithfield Market site.
In January 2021, the museum acquired a giant inflatable blimp. This blimp showed former US President Donald Trump as a baby. It was used in protests against his visit to the UK.
In 2021, the museum got a long-term loan of The Clash bass player Paul Simonon's broken Fender bass guitar. He smashed it onstage in New York in 1979. This moment was captured in a famous photo used for the album cover of London Calling.
In April 2020, the museum asked for donations of objects and stories related to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of this "Collecting Covid" project, London Zoo donated a large sign showing the logo of the UK's National Health Service. Arsenal football player Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang donated his shirt with a Black Lives Matter logo. The museum also collected soundscapes of deserted London streets during lockdown. They even asked volunteers to describe their "pandemic dreams."
Exhibitions
The Museum of London has hosted many interesting exhibitions over the years. Here are some of them:
- 1999: Pride and Prejudice: Lesbian and Gay London
- 2006: Queer is Here
- 2010–2011: London Futures
- 2011–2012: Charles Dickens
- 2012–2013: Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men
- 2013: Opening The Olympics
- 2013–2014: The Cheapside Hoard
- 2014–2015: Sherlock Holmes: The Man Who Never Lived And Will Never Die
- 2015–2016: The Crime Museum Uncovered
- 2016–2017: Fire! Fire!
- 2017–2018: The City Is Ours
- 2018: Fatberg!
- 2018–2019: Votes For Women
- 2019–2020: Beasts of London
- 2019–2020: The Clash: London Calling
- 2020–2021: Dub London: Bassline of a City
- 2022: Grime Stories: From the Corner to the Mainstream
- 2022: Harry Kane: I Want To Play Football
Other Museum Locations
Museum of London Docklands
In 2003, the Museum of London opened a second site. This is the Museum of London Docklands. It is located in a 19th-century warehouse near Canary Wharf. This museum tells the story of London as a port. It starts 2,000 years ago with the Roman trading post. It then follows London's growth into the world's biggest port. In 2007, it opened a permanent gallery about London's role in the transatlantic slave trade.
Museum of London Archaeology
Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) is an organization that does archaeological digs. It used to be part of the Museum of London. In 2011, it became an independent charity. MOLA works on archaeological projects both in London and around the UK.
How the Museum is Run
The Museum of London and the Museum of London Docklands are part of the same group. Since 2008, the museum has been jointly controlled and funded by the City of London Corporation and the Greater London Authority. Before that, it was also funded by the government. The museum is led by a director.
Directors of the Museum
- 1965–1970: Donald Harden (acting)
- 1972–1977: Tom Hume
- 1977–1997: Max Hebditch
- 1997–2002: Simon Thurley
- 2002 to 2012: Jack Lohman
- September 2012 – present: Sharon Ament
Images for kids
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Part of a 13th-century timber wall from the Thames riverbank at Billingsgate, excavated in 1982 and displayed in the medieval galleries at the Museum's Barbican site
See also
In Spanish: Museo de Londres para niños
- Culture of London
- London and Middlesex Archaeological Society
