IWM London

Three of the five English locations where the Imperial War Museums (IWM) have branches are in London. The IWM is a British national museum organization. The Imperial War Museum was established in 1917 with the goal of documenting the sacrifices made by Britain and its Empire during the First World War in both the civic and military spheres. Since then, the museum's scope has been broadened to cover every war in which British or Commonwealth forces have participated since 1914. The museum's mission as of 2012 is to "promote and facilitate the study of the history of modern conflict and 'wartime experience'".

The museum was initially located at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill and welcomed visitors in 1920. The museum first relocated to a location at South Kensington's Imperial Institute in 1924, and then in 1936 it eventually found a permanent home in Southwark, which had previously been the Bethlem Royal Hospital. The museum expanded its holdings and scope of study before the Second World Conflict broke out, but after the war the institution went into decline. The Imperial War Museum London, the organization's corporate headquarters, was renovated by the museum in the 1960s and is located in Southwark.

The museum started to take over new locations in the 1970s. The first occurred in 1976 at what is now known as IWM Duxford, a historic airport in Cambridgeshire. The Royal Navy cruiser HMS Belfast, which had previously been conserved for the country by a private charity, joined the museum in 1978. The Cabinet Conflict Rooms, an underground command post for times of war, became accessible to the general public in 1984. The museum's Bethlem building received a series of multimillion-pound renovations starting in the 1980s that were finished in 2000. The fifth and first location of the museum in the north of England, IWM North opened in Trafford, Greater Manchester, in 2002. The museum changed its name to IWM, which stands for "Imperial War Museums," in 2011.

Established: 1917; 105 years ago (branches opened 1976, 1978, 1984 and 2002)
Location:

• IWM London: Lambeth Road, London
• IWM Duxford: Duxford, Cambridgeshire
• HMS Belfast: The Queen's Walk, London
• Churchill War Rooms: Clive Steps, King Charles Street, London

• IWM North: The Quays, Trafford Wharf Road, Manchester
  
  

Collection size: 10,700,000 items or collections of items.

Visitors:

• All branches: 2,667,926
• IWM London: 1,073,936
• IWM Duxford: 401,287
• HMS Belfast: 327,206
• Churchill War Rooms: 620,933
• IWM North: 244,564