The Migration Museum explores how the movement of people to and from Britain across the ages has made us who we are – as individuals and as nations.
The Migration Museum has two locations: in Lewisham, south-east London; and a new pop-up museum in Leeds.
Admission: Free – no booking
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Mihir Bose is an award winning journalist and author. He writes a weekly ‘Big Sports Interview’ for the London Evening Standard, and also writes and broadcasts on social and historical issues as well as sport for a range of outlets including the BBC, the Financial Times and Sunday Times. His latest book, The Spirit of the Game: How Sport has Changed the Modern World, was published in January 2012. Read more
November 10, 2023
Our national touring exhibition opening 10 November 2023 in Trinity Leeds, shining a light on the stories and experiences of people who have come to Britain to work in the NHS over the past 75 years through photography, film, oral histories and an immersive experience that brings together singing and storytelling. Read more
April 9, 2022
Taking Care of Business is an immersive exhibition at the Migration Museum shining a light on the central role that migrant entrepreneurs have played in shaping our lives. Read more
April 9, 2022
Welcome to the Migrant Makers Market, a concept store and makerspace dedicated exclusively to selling products from migrant-owned businesses and creators. Read more
Our critically acclaimed national touring exhibition shining a light on the stories and experiences of people who have come to Britain to work in the NHS over the past 75 years through photography, film, oral histories and an immersive experience that brings together singing and storytelling. Read more
Taking Care of Business is an immersive exhibition at the Migration Museum shining a light on the central role that migrant entrepreneurs have played in shaping our lives – and Britain – through personal narratives, immersive art installations. Read more
A critically acclaimed immersive exhibition exploring 400 years of emigration from Britain from the Mayflower to the present day through personal narratives, contemporary art and a range of media. Read more
WALL, currently on display at The Migration Museum, is directly painted onto two separate surviving segments of the Berlin Wall by contemporary artists STIK and Thierry Noir. Read more
An immersive exhibition inviting you to discover stories from generations of new arrivals to Britain. Journey through a series of rooms in which the struggles, joys, creativity and resilience of living in a new land are brought to life through audio, films, photographs and personal objects. Read more
© Christian Sinibaldi
A collection of diverse images by professional and amateur photographers that together tell a compelling story about what migration means to people across the UK. Read more
© Siddharta Arbelaez Caldas and Aditi Anand
Working with communities and individuals, we are exploring the nature and importance of personal keepsakes in telling migration stories. Read more
In this guest blog post, author Lucas Fothergill explores Britain’s mixed-race history, what the latest Census data reveals – and the significance of this moment. Read more
A blog post by Jen Baldwin, Research Specialist at Findmypast to accompany our Taking Care of Business exhibition exploring the history of Marmite and the man who made it famous: Frederick Wissler. Because its story, like so many other ‘quintessentially British’ brands, is a migration story. Read more
What prompted Cornish emigrants to build new lives and communities in Mexico during the 19th century – and what were some of the unexpected legacies of this migration on both sides of the Atlantic? This guest blog post by Georgia Murphy, Collections and Engagement Officer at the Royal Cornwall Museum, is part of Departures: 400… Read more
Why did a family who emigrated to Canada from Liverpool in June 1924 return home just six months later – and what does their experience suggest about the reality of emigration for many British families? This guest blog post by Megan Ashworth, Archive Assistant at Merseyside Maritime Museum, is part of Departures: 400 Years of Emigration from Britain – Partner Stories, a national series to accompany our Departures exhibition and podcast. Read more
The passengers of the Mayflower were men, women and children. 102 of them left Plymouth on 6th September 1620. Who were they and why were they leaving? This guest blog post by Jo Loosemore, curator of Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy – the national commemorative exhibition for 2020/21 in The Box, Plymouth, is part of Departures: 400 Years of Emigration from Britain – Partner Stories, a national series to accompany the Migration Museum’s Departures exhibition and podcast. Read more
Trent Alexander-Arnold was part of England’s initial 26-man Euros squad, but suffered an injury in a warm-up game which forced him to withdraw from the tournament. In this post, Findmypast’s family history experts delve into the Liverpool-born player’s family tree and try to assess some of the headline-grabbing claims about his family ties to the US – and to Sir Alex Ferguson. Read more
As part of our Football Moves People campaign, our friends at family history website Findmypast have been exploring the pasts of Scotland’s and Wales’s footballing heroes to see where their heritage lies. Read more
A guest post from Iqbal Wahhab OBE FRSA, founder of London restaurants The Cinnamon Club and Roast and Distinguished Friend of the Migration Museum, who was born in 1963 in Rajshahi, and moved to London before his first birthday. I was born in 1963 in a Rajshahi hospital, in what was then East Pakistan and… Read more
Dr Lesley Trotter contributed to our Departures exhibition and features in the latest episode of our Departures podcast, which focuses on the so-called ‘left behind’ wives of Cornwall in the 19th century. The episode page features Henry Scott Tuke’s painting ‘The Message.’ Dr Trotter chose a study for this painting as the cover image for her book ‘The Married Widows of Cornwall’. In this guest post, Dr Trotter reveals the fascinating real-life story of the woman featured in the painting: Mrs Elizabeth Fouracre. Read more
Our latest guest post from family history website Findmypast helps you discover if you have distant Welsh cousins somewhere you might not expect: Patagonia, South America. Read more
Andrew Steeds has been involved with the Migration Museum as a volunteer, trustee and as our Projects Manager for the best part of a decade. His many responsibilities have included creating and overseeing our blog. He stepped back from our core staff team at the end of 2020, although will continue to work with us on a freelance basis and to be closely involved in our future activities and developments. In this sign-off blog post, he explains why the idea of a national Migration Museum for Britain resonates so strongly with him. Read more
© E. Le Bihan/State Library of New South Wales
In the first in a series of guest posts, Findmypast’s family history experts have created a guide to help you discover if you could be related to someone who was transported to Australia as a convict. Read more
The past few months have been an occasion for raking over the past and sifting through memories. Elzbieta Piekacz – a photographer who has documented many of our exhibitions and events – has been going over her past, recalling a moment when she travelled back to Lviv, the city that her grandparents lived in, to piece together memories, armed only with some photographs left to her by her grandmother. Read more
In this second guest lockdown blog, Tim Smith, a photographer who has written two previous blogs for us and has been ‘with’ us since the start of the Migration Museum Project, sifts through old photos he and his father took of the Caribbean and asks how photographic memories control the narratives we spin of our… Read more
In this period of enforced inactivity, when almost all Migration Museum staff are in furlough, we are running a small number of blogs written by friends of the Museum on subjects related to the current pandemic. The first one, written by Cathy Ross, long-term friend (and distinguished friend) of the Museum, focuses on the capacity… Read more
A unique archive of photographs which records the changing face of a British industrial city through the 20th century is now being brought to a national audience in a BBC documentary, as Tim Smith, long-term friend and supporter of the Migration Museum, recounts. When the Belle Vue Studio opened in 1926 on Manningham Lane in… Read more
We were told that the absence of a large screen was due to the Extinction Rebellion protests in Westminster Square. The reason for the absence of anything but a small handful of MPs was not given, so we could only speculate: XR as well? Brexit-induced agoraphobia? indifference to the plight of Syria and its citizens?… Read more
The route from south-east Europe to north-west Europe is one taken by thousands of people seeking asylum and refuge from war and persecution. Newspapers constantly present this as a contemporary challenge, but, as this blog illustrates, this is a well-trodden path – for the artist Freya Gabie this route is the basis of a project… Read more
The New Londoners, an exhibition featuring portraits of families from all over the world who call London home, is on display in the Breathing Space café section of the Migration Museum until 27 May. This blog profiles the exhibition, which features the photographs of Magnum photographer Chris Steele-Perkins, a long-term supporter of the Migration Museum.… Read more
This is a short posting about football, but really it’s mostly about forgiveness. At a time when divisions run deep and animosity is in the air, when Crystal Palace’s goalkeeper is apparently ‘desperate’ to learn about the Second World War if only to understand why the Nazi salute he was photographed making might have been… Read more
In April we welcome a new artist in residence to Room to Breathe: the multimedia artist Shorsh Saleh. Shorsh’s display in the art studio inside the exhibition reveals a range of delightful artistic practices, from miniature paintings, installations to carpet weaving. His body of work reflects his layered and complex identity both as an individual… Read more
Ceyda Oskay is the new artist in residence in our current exhibition, Room to Breathe. As with previous artists, we asked Ceyda and the curator in residence of the art studio, Dima Karout, a series of questions and answers to find out more about Ceyda’s artistic practice. Ceyda uses textiles to explore symbolic themes around… Read more
We are approaching the end of our third monthly residency in our current exhibition, Room to Breathe: the New Art Studio, an art therapy practice supporting asylum seekers and refugees in London, will be leaving the gallery on 24 February, and Ceyda Oskay will be moving into the space the following week. In the course… Read more
Much is made of Britain’s reputation for providing refuge for people seeking political asylum but many consider such self-congratulation undeserved, pointing instead to Britain’s relative resistance to taking in Jewish refugees before and during the Second World War, to the small number of Vietnamese boatpeople taken in in the 1970s (in comparison with those taken… Read more
In this guest blog Olivia Bridge considers the contribution EU nationals have made to the museum sector, and what impact the UK’s withdrawal from the EU may have on the culture and heritage industries. Artists and, more generally, people working in the culture and heritage industry have always been conspicuous for their mobility, travelling across… Read more
Room to Breathe at the Migration Museum takes visitors on an immersive journey through a series of interconnected rooms, revealing the multi-layered experience of migrants and refugees arriving in a new country. Intimate personal stories are brought to life through audio recordings of oral histories as visitors go through the different rooms. At the centre… Read more
When people express anxieties about immigration, they tend to do so in terms of its economic, social or cultural effect on the country – and occasionally all three. Of these, the social effect of immigration continues to be the most divisive, with strident voices expressing bitterly opposing views. As far as the other two are… Read more
This is a guest blog by photographer Tim Smith, a long-standing friend of the Migration Museum Project and contributor to our 100 Images of Migration exhibition. He describes the background to Island to Island – Journeys Through the Caribbean, a new exhibition at Leeds Central Library which runs from 27 June until 27 July 2018. A… Read more
This toolkit is an open-access resource to support co-created community engagement projects. It has been fully co-produced by members of our People’s Panel and Network and offers a selection of ‘top tips’ and learning from the People’s Panel and Network, as well as templates to inspire and support others in their community engagement work. Read more
The Migration Museum has been awarded Museum of Sanctuary status in recognition of our work in championing stories of people on the move and putting people with lived experience of seeking sanctuary at the heart of our work. Read more
We are heartbroken that our trustee George Alagiah OBE has passed away. George was a passionate supporter, a remarkable trustee and a true friend and champion. Read more
Join the Migration Museum this summer from 24–28 July for a week-long creative programme. Develop your creative skills in response to the theme: ‘Who is a Migrant?’ Open to all young people in Lewisham ages 14-18. All abilities and skills welcome. Read more
We’re thrilled to have won the People’s Choice award at the Cultural Enterprises Awards 2023 for our Migrant Makers Market, our concept store and makerspace providing a platform for a unique range of amazing products made by migrant-led businesses and creators. Read more
After a 10-year journey, the Migration Museum is delighted to announce that it has been given the green light for a permanent home in the City of London. Read more
Over the past year, young people from across Lewisham have been designing exhibits responding to what migration means to them as part of Moving Stories: Lewisham, a creative competition we ran during Borough of Culture, supported by Landsec. Read more
We’re delighted to have received funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for our project ‘Connecting Lewisham to its Migration Heritage’. Read more
Do you work for the NHS (or previously did) and love to sing? The Migration Museum is looking for up to 8 people to take part in an exciting project that highlights the extraordinary role that people with migrant heritage have played in shaping and sustaining the NHS – and caring for us throughout our lives. Read more
The Migration Museum has been shortlisted in the Best Visitor Attraction category at the Lewisham Mayor’s Business Awards 2022. Please vote for us by Friday 21 October. Read more
The Migration Museum is looking for people to be part of our People’s Panel and Network, helping to establish our community engagement values and practices in Lewisham and beyond. Read more
© Guy Corbishley, from our 100 Images of Migration exhibition
We know that statements alone are not enough. We all have a duty, individually and collectively, to provide support, sanctuary and welcome for people of all nationalities and backgrounds displaced by the current situation – and by other conflicts and crises around the world. Read more
It is with profound sadness that we share news of the death of Achim Borchardt-Hume, one of the Migration Museum’s longest standing and most committed Distinguished Friends. Read more
Departures: 400 Years of Emigration from Britain – Partner Stories is a national series to accompany the Migration Museum’s Departures exhibition and podcast series. British emigration is one of the largest mass movements of people in modern history – and emigration stories resonate across the UK. We’ve partnered with museums and galleries across the country… Read more
Our brand-new online shop is now open, featuring a hand-picked selection of artwork, books, homeware and gifts. All purchases support our exhibitions, events and education work. Read more
The Migration Museum was part of the welcome for Little Amal, a giant puppet of a Syrian refugee, to Lewisham on Friday 22 October 2021. Read more
The Migration Museum has appointed five new Trustees to its Board to help us build on the success of our current home in the heart of Lewisham and establish a highly relevant and accessible new cultural destination that puts migration at the heart of national stories, narratives and conversations. Read more
The Migration Museum has joined forces with 11 other key organisations in Lewisham to help the borough’s recovery from Covid-19 and improve the lives of local residents. The 12 anchor institutions have signed a new agreement to work together to boost employment, education, health and the environment across the borough. Read more
The UK’s biggest exam board Pearson Edexcel launched a new Migrants in Britain GCSE History topic at the Migration Museum on 6 October 2021, attended by teachers and educators from across the country. Read more
We have created a free, in-depth digital education resource pack shining a spotlight on 400 years of British emigration, designed with input from teachers and AQA’s History subject advisor. This resource pack will be helpful to any student studying the impact of emigration from Britain; both on the countries people emigrated to, and on Britain itself. Read more
Football Moves People was a campaign led by the Migration Museum and running throughout this summer’s men’s European Championships highlighting how migration has shaped the beautiful game. Read more
Aaron Wilkes and Shalina Patel discuss how effective teaching of migration can enrich your Key Stage 3 curriculum, with insights from Liberty Melly and Tia Shah from the learning team at the Migration Museum. What do students gain from studying migration at KS3? How has historical scholarship on migration changed in recent years? What is the impact of new research on how we should teach the topic? Read more
“This installation is my own unique perspective on growing up in Lewisham as the child of parents from the Windrush generation, reflecting on the places and the forgotten heroes of Lewisham’s past and present that have shaped my life. In the audio clips below, I share my memories of family and growing up in Lewisham, my… Read more
Over the past year, young people from across Lewisham have been designing exhibits responding to what migration means to them as part of Moving Stories: Lewisham, a creative competition we ran during Borough of Culture, supported by Landsec. This video tells the story of the competition, featuring interviews with the six shortlisted teams and footage of the finals event. Read more
Britain continues to be a major source of emigrants in the 21st century – not something we often hear about. So why do people leave the UK now and which countries do they choose to settle in? And how is emigration today affected by Britain’s colonial past? Mukti Jain Campion talks to sociologist Professor Michaela Benson of Lancaster University who studies modern British emigration and hears from a range of British people currently living abroad. Read more
Contemporary artist STIK has made a video for us to celebrate our reopening, featuring amazing drone footage of WALL and our current exhibitions. Read more
Britain is unique in its long history of exporting its own children. Well into the 20th century there were official schemes sending young children out to settle in former colonies such as Canada and Australia with the promise of a better life. While some children were fortunate enough to do well in their new country, for thousands of others the forced migration was a profoundly traumatic experience of family separation, neglect and abuse. Mukti Jain Campion hears from two former child migrants who were sent to Australia in the early 1950s without their parents’ consent. She also speaks to Margaret Humphreys, founder and director of the Child Migrants Trust which was established to support former British child migrants reunite with their families and asks what lessons can be learned from their experience?
When we speak of emigration we tend to think of the people who leave to go abroad. But what about the families and communities left at home? In 19th century Cornwall this was a pressing question. As the once-thriving local mining industry went into decline, thousands of men left each year to find better paid jobs abroad. They were often gone for years, leaving wives and families to cope alone and rely on remittances that didn’t always come. Mukti Jain Campion speaks to Dr Lesley Trotter author of The Married Widows of Cornwall to find out how these so-called “left behind” wives survived and why their stories are so important to understand the full story of migration. Amanda Drake also shares a poignant letter sent by her 19th century ancestor. Read more
Our Head of Learning and Partnerships Emily Miller introduces the Dunera display from our Departures exhibition, as part of the Jewish Museum’s Passover Object Series of talks. Read more
In May 1865, 153 men, women and children set sail from Liverpool to travel to the other side of the world. Their dream was to build a new homeland, somewhere they could speak Welsh, govern themselves and pursue their religion and culture without interference. A romantic vision that took them 8,000 miles to the remote Chubut valley in Argentina. Did their dream of a Welsh utopia come true? And what impact did their arrival have on indigenous people who already called this region home? Mukti Jain Campion speaks to Professor Lucy Taylor of Aberystwyth University who has studied the archives of the Welsh in Patagonia, and Gareth Jenkins who has traced a family from his own village in Montgomeryshire that was amongst the early migrants. Read more
From the early 19th century to the beginning of the First World War, over 10 million British people migrated. Over half of these emigrants left from the port of Liverpool. Mukti Jain Campion talks to Ian Murphy, Director of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, to discover how the port of Liverpool became the gateway to millions of new lives abroad, and examines the importance of printed propaganda in fuelling 19th century British emigration with Dr Fariha Shaikh, author and Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Birmingham. Read more
Episode 4: Emigration and Enslavement The 17th century colonisation of North America and the Caribbean by emigrants from the British Isles was, almost from its beginning, dependent on the brutal forced transatlantic migration of millions of enslaved African people. Their labour made possible the industrial-scale production of lucrative crops such as tobacco, sugar and cotton… Read more
From the beginning of the 17th century when the first ships of the English East India Company set sail from London, tens of thousands of men from Britain ventured out to live an expat life in a country that was completely different to anything they had previously known. Most never returned. Mukti Jain Campion speaks to historians William Dalrymple, Professor Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Dr Kate Teltscher and to Gurminder Bhambra, Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies at the University of Sussex, to find out more about the Company men who went to India and how their actions brought profound change for both Britain and India. Read more
In the early 17th century shiploads of young women were despatched to America by the Virginia Company of London. It was hoped they would marry the English planters in Jamestown and help grow the new colony. But who were these young women prepared to travel thousands of miles across the ocean in search of a husband? And how did they fare? Mukti Jain Campion talks to Jennifer Potter, author of The Jamestown Brides: The Bartered Wives of the New World. Read more
Mass emigration from England first took off in the 17th century with the colonisation of America and the Caribbean. The number of people leaving the shores of England was huge and unprecedented. Mukti Jain Campion speaks to historian James Evans, author of Emigrants:Why the English Sailed to the New World and to American historian Dr Linford Fisher to find out how those early English settlers fared and how Native Americans responded to the incursion of their lands. Read more
Departures is a new podcast from the Migration Museum exploring 400 years of emigration from Britain. Read more
The Migration Museum commissioned a review to provide an overview of migration-related work being undertaken by museums and heritage sites nationally, to explore some of the motivations for the museum sector to address migration and the challenges faced in doing so, and to provide an initial basis and context for participants in the Migration Network 2020/21 to explore further. Read more
© Elzbieta Piakacz
Episode 3 of Migrants Mean Business features Karen Blackett, UK Country Manager for WPP and Chairwoman of MediaCom, in conversation with David Abraham Read more
Episode 2 of Migrants Mean Business features a conversation between George Alagiah and entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Lloyd Dorfman CBE. Lloyd founded Travelex at the age of 24 from one small shop in London and grew it to become the world’s largest foreign exchange specialist. Lloyd and George’s wide-ranging conversation explores Lloyd’s business and philanthropic career, his family roots and Jewish identity, the essence of entrepreneurialism and whether one ever stops being a ‘migrant’. Read more
To kick off our Migrants Mean Business series, we’ve got a cracking conversation with one of the most charismatic and recognisable business leaders of the past few decades – Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou. His conversation with Daniel Franklin, executive and diplomatic editor of The Economist, ranges from shipping to dog walking, suing Netflix to going head to head with Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary. Read more
Historian, producer, presenter and Migration Museum trustee David Olusoga delivered our 2018 Annual Lecture at SOAS on 22 November 2018, arguing that, to make sense of contemporary Britain, we need to recover the global aspects of our history and culture. Read more
A video showcasing our exhibition No Turning Back: Seven Migration Moments that Changed Britain. Read more
Journalist and author Gary Younge looks at how immigration is understood in the current age and what the consequences are in terms of migration, social anxiety and democracy. Read more
An exhibition guide to help you get the most of Taking Care of Business when visiting with your students.
This free, in-depth resource pack shines a spotlight on 400 years of British emigration – one of the largest movements of people in modern history, yet a history that is often overlooked. This resource pack will be helpful to any student studying the impact of emigration from Britain; both on the countries people emigrated to, and on Britain itself. However, the resource pack is designed specifically for Key Stage 4 students studying GCSE History: AQA's ‘Migration, Empires and the Peoples’ unit. The pack has been designed with input from AQA teachers and the board's History subject advisor.
We've put together a helpful guide to help you begin to explore your family tree and the stories hidden within, including questions to ask your relatives and a family tree outline to print off and fill in. We have also highlighted some great online resources to help you dig even further.
