The Royal Artillery Museum is one of the world’s oldest military museums. It first opened to the public in 1820, but the collection is even older than that.
The Royal Military Repository
In 1778, King George III instructed Lord Townshend, the Master-General of the Ordnance, to establish a “Repository for Military Machines” to provide the officers and soldiers of the Royal Artillery with improved training in the science and practice of artillery.
This new teaching collection was originally based in The Warren, later known as the Royal Arsenal, at Woolwich in South East London. Captain Willian Congreve was appointed as the first Commandant of the Royal Military Repository and immediately started to lay the foundations of the historic artillery collection while transforming Royal Artillery training.
Following a serious fire in 1802, the collection was moved to a new building constructed within the Repository grounds, where it remained until 1820.
The Rotunda Museum
In 1820 the collection was re-housed in the Rotunda on Woolwich Common, where the museum first opened to the public.
The Rotunda started life as an elabor
ate marquee built by John Nash in the grounds of Carlton House to host events celebrating the allied victory over Napoleon. After the celebrations, the Prince Regent authorised the Rotunda’s removal to Woolwich as a new home for the artillery collection and the associated activities.
During the nineteenth century the artillery collection continued to grow, as did the number of visitors to the Rotunda each year. Meanwhile, the Royal Artillery Institution was founded in 1838 and created a regimental history museum and library.
The Rotunda remained in use as a store for the museum’s reserve collection until 2010. The building is now unused and is on the Historic England Buildings at Risk Register. Further information on the Rotunda building can be found in the excellent Research Report published by Historic England in 2020.
Firepower Museum
In 2001 the new “Firepower” museum was opened at the Royal Arsenal. It brought together the artillery collection from the Rotunda with the previously separate regimental history collection, medal collection, library and archive.
While Firepower was highly popular with those who visited, it did not attract the very high visitor numbers that the Regiment anticipated for a major museum in central London. At the same time, the relocation of the Royal Artillery’s centre of activity from Woolwich to Salisbury Plain saw the Regiment become increasingly disconnected from its historic collection.
Firepower was closed in 2016, and the collection was moved into storage in Wiltshire, while plans were developed for a new museum close to Larkhill, the modern home of the Royal Artillery.
