National Maritime Museum

In Greenwich, London, there is a marine museum called the National Maritime Museum (NMM). It is a component of Royal Museums Greenwich, a collection of museums located inside the World Heritage Site of Maritime Greenwich. It has no general entry fee, like other publicly funded national museums in the UK, although there are normally admission fees for most side-gallery temporary exhibitions, which are frequently augmented by many loaned pieces from other museums.

The National Maritime Museum Act of 1934 established the institution under the direction of a Board of Trustees that was chosen by HM Treasury. It is based on Sir James Caird's (1864–1954) kind gifts. On April 27, 1937, King George VI traveled up the Thames with his daughter Princess Elizabeth to officially inaugurate the museum. Sir Geoffrey Callender served as the first Director.

Several organizations were fighting for the opportunity to buy the 5,500 RMS Titanic artifacts that belonged to Premier Exhibitions, which went bankrupt, in late August 2018. In the end, a group that was soliciting funds to buy the 5,500 artifacts included the National Maritime Museum, Titanic Belfast, Titanic Foundation Limited, and National Museums Northern Ireland.

The team wanted to preserve everything as a single exhibit. The Titanic was built in Belfast, and the oceanographer Robert Ballard said he supported this idea since it would guarantee that the artifacts would be permanently displayed there and in Greenwich. The bid procedure established by the bankruptcy court in Jacksonville, Florida received criticism from the museums. The group lacked the necessary cash to place the minimum offer, which was set at US$21.5 million (£16.5 million) for the auction on October 11th, 2018.

Established: 1937; 85 years ago
Location: GreenwichLondon, SE10United Kingdom
Collection size: 2 million+ objects
Visitors: 2,367,904 (2009)
Website: rmg.co.uk