National Museums Liverpool, formerly National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool in Merseyside, England. All the museums and galleries in the group have free admission. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and an exempt charity under English law. [1]
In the 1980s, local politics in Liverpool was under the control of the Militant group of the Labour Party. In 1986, Liverpool's Militant councillors discussed closing down the city's museums and selling off their contents, in particular their art collections. [2] To prevent this from happening, the Conservative government in Whitehall nationalised all of Liverpool's museums under the Merseyside Museums and Galleries Order 1986 which created a new national trustee body called National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside. [3] [4] It changed its name to National Museums Liverpool in 2003.
It holds in trust multi-disciplinary collections of worldwide origin made up of more than one million objects and works of art. The organisation holds courses, lectures, activities and events and provides educational workshops and activities for school children, young people and adults. It's venues are open to the public six days a week, from Tuesday to Sunday, providing both free and ticketed exhibitions. National Museums Liverpool has charitable status and is England’s only national museums group based entirely outside London. It currently comprises eight different venues, one of which is outside Liverpool itself — the Lady Lever Art Gallery, located in Port Sunlight.
Museum | Year Established | Status | Specialities | Image |
---|---|---|---|---|
World Museum | 1851 | Open | Ancient History, archaeology, ethnology, natural history, space and time, science | |
Walker Art Gallery | 1877 | Open | Art: Painting, sculpture and craft | |
Merseyside Maritime Museum | 1980 | Open | Immigration, Maritime history | |
The Piermaster's House | 1983 | Open | Wartime | |
Border Force National Museum | 1994 | Open | The Border Force National Museum (Known as:Seized! The Border and Customs uncovered), highlighting the work of the HM Revenue & Customs and the UK Border Agency, covering smuggling, crime and the history of tax. Located in the basement gallery of Merseyside Maritime Museum since May 2008. | |
International Slavery Museum | 2007 | Open, Phase 2 under development | Historical and contemporary aspects of slavery | |
Lady Lever Art Gallery | 1922 | Open | Art: paintings, sculpture and furniture | |
Sudley House | 1996 | Open | Art, fashion | |
Museum of Liverpool | 2011 | Open | Liverpool's social and cultural history. The museum follows the Museum of Liverpool Life, open 1993–2006 | |
National Conservation Centre | 1996 | Closed | Art, conservation science and technology. Closed to the public 17 December 2010. Conservation work continues behind the scenes. |
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, North West England, with a population of 500,500 in 2022. The city is part of a broader metropolitan area that is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.24 million. A historic port city, Liverpool lies on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary adjacent to the Irish Sea. The city was an important part of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and a vital hub for trade. The city celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2007 and was named the 2008 European Capital of Culture. Its selection was credited with kickstarting an economic renaissance in the region. The city's modern economy has a significant influence on the knowledge sector, maritime industry, tourism, culture, hospitality, healthcare industry, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, the creative and digital sectors.
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corporation. Tate Liverpool was created to display work from the Tate Collection which comprises the national collection of British art from the year 1500 to the present day, and international modern art. The gallery also has a programme of temporary exhibitions. Until 2003, Tate Liverpool was the largest gallery of modern and contemporary art in the UK outside London.
Merseyside is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, Cheshire to the south, the Welsh county of Flintshire across the Dee Estuary to the southwest, and the Irish Sea to the west. The largest settlement is Liverpool.
The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group.
World Museum is a large museum in Liverpool, England which has extensive collections covering archaeology, ethnology and the natural and physical sciences. Special attractions include the Natural History Centre and a planetarium. Entry to the museum is free. The museum is part of National Museums Liverpool.
The Merseyside Maritime Museum is a museum based in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is part of National Museums Liverpool and an Anchor Point of ERIH, The European Route of Industrial Heritage. It opened for a trial season in 1980 before fully opening in 1984 and expanding in 1986. The museum occupies warehouse block D at the Albert Dock, along with the Piermaster's House, Canning Half Tide Dock and Canning Graving Docks.
Merseytravel is the passenger transport executive, responsible for the coordination of public transport in the Liverpool City Region in North West England. Merseytravel was established on 1 December 1969 as the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive. From 1 April 2014, with the creation of the Liverpool City Region, Merseytravel expanded its area of operation from the metropolitan county of Merseyside to also include the Borough of Halton.
The County Sessions House is a former courthouse in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It stands at the bottom of Islington, to the east of the Walker Art Gallery, which now occupies the building. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.
The Reader is a Liverpool-based literary magazine published quarterly by The Reader Organisation. The magazine was founded in 1997 by Sarah Coley, Jane Davis, and Angela Macmillan with a grant from the University of Liverpool's School of English. It operated as part of the University of Liverpool until 2008 when the parent organisation became an independent charitable body. The Reader magazine is currently edited by Philip Davis, author, biographer, and Professor of English at the University of Liverpool. The Deputy Editor is Sarah Coley.
Aintree Central railway station was a station located on the North Liverpool Extension Line on Park Lane, Aintree, Merseyside, across Park Lane from the current Aintree station.
The Williamson Art Gallery and Museum is an art gallery and museum situated in Birkenhead, Merseyside, England and houses Wirral's art collection.
Sir Peter Moores was a British businessman, art collector and philanthropist who was chairman of the Liverpool-based Littlewoods football pools and retailing business in the United Kingdom between 1977 and 1980.
The Victoria Gallery & Museum (VG&M) is an art gallery and museum run by the University of Liverpool in Liverpool, Merseyside, England.
The Militant tendency, or Militant, was a Trotskyist group in the British Labour Party, organised around the Militant newspaper, which launched in 1964. According to Michael Crick, its politics were based on the thoughts of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and "virtually nobody else".
An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long gallery in Elizabethan and Jacobean houses served many purposes including the display of art. Historically, art is displayed as evidence of status and wealth, and for religious art as objects of ritual or the depiction of narratives. The first galleries were in the palaces of the aristocracy, or in churches. As art collections grew, buildings became dedicated to art, becoming the first art museums.