Imperial War Museum
The Imperial War Museum (IWM), currently branded "Imperial War Museums", is a British national museum. It is headquartered in London, with five branches in England. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, it was intended to record the civil and military war effort and sacrifice of the United Kingdom and its Empire during the First World War. The museum's remit has since expanded to include all conflicts in which British or Commonwealth forces have been involved since 1914. As of 2012, the museum aims "to provide for, and to encourage, the study and understanding of the history of modern war and 'wartime experience'."[3]
This article is about the British national museum organisation. For other uses, see Imperial War Museum (disambiguation).Established
1917 (branches opened 1976, 1978, 1984 and 2002)
IWM London: Lambeth Road, London
IWM Duxford: Duxford, Cambridgeshire
HMS Belfast: The Queen's Walk, London
Churchill War Rooms: Clive Steps, King Charles Street, London
IWM North: The Quays, Trafford Wharf Road, Manchester
10,700,000 items or collections of items.[2]
All branches: 2,667,926
IWM London: 1,073,936[1]
IWM Duxford: 401,287
HMS Belfast: 327,206
Churchill War Rooms: 620,933
IWM North: 244,564
Lambeth North (IWM London)
Originally housed in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill, the museum opened to the public in 1920. In 1924, it moved to space in the Imperial Institute in South Kensington and in 1936 it acquired a permanent home at the former Bethlem Royal Hospital in Southwark, which serves as its headquarters. The outbreak of the Second World War saw the museum expand both its collections and its terms of reference, but in the post-war period it entered a period of decline. In 1976 the museum opened a branch at Duxford Aerodrome in Cambridgeshire, now referred to as IWM Duxford, and in 1978 the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Belfast, which is permanently berthed on the River Thames in central London, became a branch of the museum. In 1984, the Cabinet War Rooms, an underground wartime command centre in Westminster, were opened to the public. From the 1980s onwards, the museum's Southwark building underwent a series of multimillion-pound redevelopments, completed in 2000. In 2002 IWM North opened in Trafford, Greater Manchester, the fifth branch of the museum and the first in the north of England. In 2011, the museum rebranded itself as IWM, standing for "Imperial War Museums".
The museum's collections include archives of personal and official documents, photographs, film and video material, and oral history recordings, an extensive library, a large art collection, and examples of military vehicles and aircraft, equipment, and other artefacts.
The museum is funded by government grants, charitable donations, and revenue generation through commercial activity such as retailing, licensing, and publishing. General admission is free to IWM London (although specific exhibitions require the purchase of a ticket) and IWM North, but an admission fee is levied at the other branches. The museum is an exempt charity under the Charities Act 1993 and a non-departmental public body under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. As of January 2012, the Chairman of the Trustees is Sir Francis Richards. Since May 2023, Caro Howell has served as the museum's Director-General [4]
Imperial War Museum Act 1920
An Act to make provision for the management of the Imperial War Museum and for other purposes connected therewith.
10 & 11 Geo. 5. c. 16
2 July 1920
An Act to confirm certain agreements entered into by the Commissioners of Works with a view to the acquisition for the purposes of the Imperial War Museum of a part of the premises vested by the Bethlem Hospital Act 1926 in the London County Council as an open space and to authorise the retention and adaption of certain of the existing buildings on the said premises and for purposes consequential thereon.
21 & 22 Geo. 5. c. lxiii
31 July 1931
31 July 1931
John Singer Sargent
Nash, Paul
Nevinson, C R W
Tonks, Henry
Governance[edit]
The Imperial War Museum is an executive non-departmental public body under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, from which it receives financial support in the form of a grant-in-aid. The governance of the museum is the responsibility of a Board of Trustees, originally established by the Imperial War Museum Act 1920,[13] later amended by the Imperial War Museum Act 1955[160] and the Museums and Galleries Act 1992 and other relevant legislation. The board comprises a president (currently Prince Edward, Duke of Kent) who is appointed by the sovereign, and fourteen members appointed in varying proportions by the Prime Minister, and the Foreign, Defence, and Culture Secretaries. Seven further members are Commonwealth High Commissioners appointed ex officio by their respective governments. As of January 2012 the Chairman of the Trustees is Sir Francis Richards and his deputy is Lieutenant-General Sir John Kiszely.[161][162][163] Past chairmen have included Admiral Sir Deric Holland-Martin (1967–77),[164] Admiral of the Fleet Sir Algernon Willis[165] and Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Grandy (trustee 1971–78, chairman 1978–89). During the Second World War Grandy had commanded RAF Duxford, and was chairman during the planning of Duxford's American Air Museum, which opened in 1997.[166][167]
The museum's director-general is answerable to the trustees and acts as accounting officer. Since 1917 the museum has had six directors. The first was Sir Martin Conway, a noted art historian, mountaineer and explorer. He was knighted in 1895 for his efforts to map the Karakoram mountain range of the Himalayas, and was Slade Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Cambridge from 1901 to 1904. Conway held the post of director until his death in 1937, when he was succeeded by Leslie Bradley. Bradley had served in the First World War in the Middlesex Regiment before being invalided out in 1917. He later became acquainted with Charles ffoulkes, who invited him to join the museum where he was initially engaged in assembling the museum's poster collection.[168] Bradley retired in 1960 and was succeeded by Dr Noble Frankland. Frankland had served as a navigator in RAF Bomber Command, winning a Distinguished Flying Cross. While a Cabinet Office official historian he co-authored a controversial official history of the RAF strategic air campaign against Germany. Frankland retired in 1982 and was succeeded by Dr Alan Borg who had previously been at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. In 1995 Borg moved to the Victoria and Albert Museum and was succeeded by Sir Robert Crawford, who had originally been recruited by Frankland as a research assistant in 1968. Upon Crawford's retirement in 2008 he was succeeded by Diane Lees, previously director of the V&A Museum of Childhood. She was noted in the media as the first woman appointed to lead a British national museum.[169]
