Collection: National Army Museum

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  The Museum’s Collection is the world’s largest, and most significant, accumulation of artefacts relating the British Army and other Land Forces of the British Crown (including the former Indian Army until 1947). The Collection consists of over one million items, spanning a 600-year period with particular depth and strength for the period c1780-1914. Its geographical remit extends to all parts of the world where British land forces have fought or been stationed.

  Although the Museum received its Royal Charter (159KB) on 8 April 1960, the origins of the institution go back to the years just after the Second World War. The amalgamation of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, brought together at Sandhurst a collection of historical items around which a Royal Military Academy Museum was formed. There was an existing network of regimental and corps museums, but it was identified that there was a need to provide a repository for items relating to the pre-1947 Indian Army, the Irish regiments disbanded in 1922, and cavalry regiments which lacked depots at which they could form museums. Appeals for exhibits were published in the newspapers in 1948 and subsequent years, and in late 1949 the Indian Army Memorial Room was opened; followed by cavalry and Irish regiment displays in 1951. By 1958, with thousands of items in a rapidly growing collection, it was felt that then separate collections of Indian, Irish and cavalry relics should be brought together into a single National Army Museum. In 1960 the Royal Charter (159KB) was obtained, and Her Majesty the Queen opened new permanent displays in the former Riding School at Sandhurst on 15 July 1960.

  The collections continued to rapidly expand in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1963 the Museum acquired large proportions of the collections held by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). In 1971, the first phase of the current museum building was opened in Chelsea, London, providing additional storage and display facilities. In the early 1980s the NAM’s collecting remit was extended to the First and Second World War and beyond. In the 1990s and 2000s a number of major collections were acquired. These included the collections of the Buffs; the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes; the Women’s Royal Army Corps; Royal Army Education Corps; the Museum of Army Transport; the Middlesex Regiment; the reference collection of the Army Museums Ogilby Trust; and books from the War Office Library. In 1991 the Soldiers Effects Records were transferred from the National Archives, and in 1999 over 20,000 sealed patterns were acquired from the Ministry of Defence.

  In the first decade of the 21st century the Museum focused more on collecting contemporary material relating to the then current operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, whilst continuing to augment its older material. In 2013 the Museum acquired the Field Marshal Sir John Lyon Chapple Indian Army Collection of badges and insignia. The Grenadier Guards Archive was transferred to the Museum in 2016 and the Coldstream Guards Archive in 2019. The Museum has also started to rationalise its Collection, focusing on the review of duplicate items, non-military badges and buttons, and vehicles outside its core collecting remit.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: Not known

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The collection of uniform includes over 80,000 items of uniform and other garments dating from the mid-seventeenth century to the present day. Collectively this constitutes one of the world’s largest collections of occupational costume.

  The collection of fine and decorative art embraces pictorial works of art, together with three-dimensional arts and crafts such as sculpture, ceramics and silver. The collection includes ethnographic and soldier-made craft objects, as well as jewellery and mess ware. In total the collection comprises some 50,000 works on paper, over 700 oil paintings, 1,500 items of silver and 1,600 ceramics.

  The collection of medals and badges includes over 20,000 individual medals including 39 Victoria Crosses, and around 50,000 badges and other insignia.

  The collection of colours, guidons and flags numbers nearly 1,200 items, including very rare examples from the English Civil Wars (1642-49), and French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars of 1783-1815.

  The collection of weapons covers those used by the British soldier from the age of the longbow to the present day, and includes around 2,400 edged weapons, over 250 polearms, and over 1,700 firearms. A small representative collection of Artillery is also included in this category.

  The collection of equipment includes in excess of 16,000 items of personal equipment, scientific instruments, models and dioramas, medical equipment, musical instruments, armour and horse furniture.

  The vehicle collection numbers around 40 items, ranging from motorcycles and armoured vehicles to large trucks and primarily relates around the theme of transport and logistics.

  The Museum’s collection of archives, photographs, film and sound contains tens of thousands of private, regimental and business papers illustrating more than five centuries of British military history. The photographic collection comprises an estimated 500,000 images dating from the 1840s to the present day. The film collection is composed mainly of unofficial footage taken by soldiers and their families from the 1930s onwards. The sound collection holds recordings (dating from the 1920s onwards) of British Army and military bands, and over 750 oral history recordings. The Museum holds archival material including documents, sound recordings, photographs and film in both physical and digital formats. It is also a Place of Deposit for Public Records. The Museum maintains a separate Institutional Archive.

  The collection of printed books is the largest in its field readily accessible to the general public. The library administers over 58,000 volumes published since the early sixteenth century, which include extensive holdings of regimental histories, campaign histories, biographies, Army Lists and other official publications. In addition, the Museum holds over 1000 periodical titles. The Museum provides access to a number of online resources through the Templer Study Centre such as JSTOR and Ancestry.

  The collections include small numbers of items relating to foreign armies used for comparative purposes. The Museum will continue to collect material relating to foreign armies with a clear comparative role and high potential for display and/or research.

  The Museum also holds a handling collection managed by the Learning Department. Although the items belong to the Council of the National Army Museum, they are not bound by this Policy.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date:

  Licence: CC BY-NC