20th century London (1900 – 1999)
Explore objects, stories and blogs shining a light on London during 100 years of enormous and rapid change.
Blogs-And-Stories
Roger Mayne’s photographs of post-war London
A window into life in the capital from the 1950s
How street play shaped the lives of London’s children
These city kids created their own outdoor playgrounds with scooters, skipping ropes and songs
The City of London’s last lollipop lady
And the history of London’s traffic stoppers
Norman Hartnell’s 1928 wedding dress: A gown’s curious journey
A wedding dress that never walked down the aisle
Sex Pistols: London’s resident punk rebels
The punk pioneers who defined a generation
Punk & personal: DIY badges, bondage shirts & scrapbooks
How do you represent something as multifaceted, vibrant and anarchic as the punk scene in a museum?
Vivienne Westwood & Malcolm McLaren: King’s Road royalty
Their boutique at 430 King’s Road brought creativity – and controversy – to 1970s fashion
Blitz bombings & the discovery of the Temple of Mithras
‘Not much good came out of the London Blitz, but Mithras did’
Limehouse: London’s first Chinatown
The Chinese communities who lived in this pocket of the East End
Something blue: The 1920s wedding dress that changed colour
Theories, investigations and the dress colour conundrum
Heaven: London’s gay superclub
A pioneering LGBTQ+ ultradisco and a home of UK queer rave subculture
The history of the BBC
The world-famous BBC made its first radio broadcast from London over 100 years ago
Women's fashion in 1920s London: Going out!
Delve into the wardrobes of the fashionable woman in the 1920s
The mystery of the female Beefeater dress
Who wore this Beefeater dress by designer Colin Wild?
Strange & delightful dolls in our collection
Featuring headless puppets, the ever-stylish Sindy and a 300-year-old doll with human hair
The lost Doves Type: A Thames mystery solved
A grumpy printer dumped his masterpiece into the Thames to spite his partner. A hundred years on, mudlarks fished it back up
