Imperial War Museum

Imperial War Museums

Imperial War Museum London
Interactive fullscreen map
Established	1917; 107 years ago (1917) (branches opened 1976, 1978, 1984 and 2002)
Location	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
Coordinates	51°29′44.992″N 0°6′31.183″W / 51.49583111°N 0.10866194°W / 51.49583111; -0.10866194
Collection size	10,700,000 items or collections of items.[2]
Visitors	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
Director	Joseph Freeman
President	Prince Edward, Duke of Kent Chairman: Sir Francis Richards
Public transit access	Lambeth North (IWM London)
Website	www.iwm.org.uk
Imperial War Museums
Churchill War Rooms HMS Belfast IWM Duxford IWM London IWM North

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]

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]