Established | 4 May 1820 |
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Dissolved | 8 July 2016 |
The Royal Artillery Museum, which was one of the world's oldest military museums,[1] was first opened to the public in Woolwich in southeast London in 1820. It told the story of the development of artillery through the ages by way of a collection of artillery pieces from across the centuries.
The museum had its roots in an earlier institution, the Royal Military Repository (established in Woolwich in the 1770s as a training collection for cadets of the Royal Military Academy); items which were once displayed in the Repository form the nucleus of the Royal Artillery Museum collection.
Following the closure in 2016 of the museum, branded since 2001 as 'Firepower – The Royal Artillery Museum', its collection has been placed in storage pending the establishment of a new Royal Artillery Museum.[2] The Royal Artillery Museum collections are designated as being of national and international significance by Arts Council England.[3]