Photo: AndyScott · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Royal London Hospital Museum

Museum of the history of the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, closed since 2020 while plans for a new home are developed.

Temporarily closed

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Temporarily closed. The museum closed in 2020 and has not reopened; its collection is in storage. Plans for a new, larger museum space depend on planning permission, which has not yet been granted.

About the museum

The Royal London Hospital Museum tells the story of the hospital from its foundation in 1740 and of the wider history of medicine in the East End. Its collection includes art, surgical instruments, medical and nursing equipment, uniforms, medals, documents and books. Displays covered the story of Joseph Merrick, known as the Elephant Man, the nurse Edith Cavell and the matron Eva Luckes, and a forensic medicine section.

The museum was housed in the crypt of the former church of St Philip in Newark Street behind the hospital. The church was built to the designs of Arthur Cawston and was later converted into a library for the hospital's medical college. The museum there reopened in 2002 after a major refurbishment.

The museum closed at the start of the pandemic in 2020 and has not reopened, and its collection has been in storage since then. In 2026 plans were announced for a new ground-floor space, about 70% larger than the old site, in a redevelopment of buildings behind the hospital, with a lecture hall and room for temporary exhibitions. The scheme depends on planning permission.