The website has digitised records of some 8,000 images, sound files and database records. This ticket dates from 1908. © Museum of London
A new website has been launched creating an online encyclopaedia telling the story of 20th century London.
Exploring 20th Century London draws on some 8,000 objects from the collections of four London museums to explore the rich diversity of life in the capital.
The site is packed with original photos, images of artefacts, sounds files and database records from the Museum of London, London’s Transport Museum, the Jewish Museum and the Museum of Croydon.
Youth subcultures from the Hells' Angels (this jacket is from a Croydon biker of the late 1960s) to mods, teddy boys and punks. © Croydon Museum and Heritage Service
“Exploring 20th Century London presents a hundred years of London and Londoners through a technology born in the century whose story it tells,” said Jack Lohman, director of the Museum of London.
Viewers can search by location, using an interactive map, by decade on the site’s timeline, or by theme. Subjects as diverse as art and design, migration and transport, politics, communities, youth culture and fashion are all covered.
They reveal some uprising tales, from why thousands thronged the streets for a Highgate bus driver’s funeral to where Bollywood films first arrived in the UK.
This picture of Western Synagogue off the Haymarket was taken between 1910 and 1914. It was closed in 1991. © Jewish Museum, London
The project brings the largest collection of images from the four museums ever made accessible online. London’s Transport Museum unearthed many items previously unseen by members of the public during their research for the website.
Funded by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) Designation Challenge Fund and the London Museums’ Hub it is part of a wider project by the MLA to make the records held in the UK’s museums, libraries and archives available to a wider audience.
“I’m extremely excited by the opportunities this website affords us to make our collections and holdings more widely accessible,” added Jack Lohman. “It is a key example of museums forging new partnerships and working practices, and will work as a pilot model for future projects, in the London Museums’ Hub and beyond.”
