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Contemporary print showing the India section, including an elephant with a highly decorated riding platform and awning
The Great Exhibition, India No. 7, 1852, Joseph Nash, coloured lithograph

World City is on the lower level of the Museum, replacing the old 19th Century, Imperial Capital, Early 20th Century, Second World War and London Now galleries. This vast space has become home to over 3,000 objects, many of which have never been on public display before.

Using the Museum's unrivalled collection of objects, images, costumes, oral history, photography and ephemera, World City offers a vivid picture of life at a time that witnessed both the remarkable success of the Great Exhibition and the horrors of the Great Stink.

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Photograph of section of Booth's map showing Whitechapel, with streets coloured according to the class of the inhabitants
Standards of living in East London mapped by Charles Booth, 1889

Work clothes, early machinery, personal letters and spoken testimony are just some of the items that evoke the daily experiences of Londoners. From the factory worker to the lady of leisure, World City evokes the glamour and the grit, the power and the poverty of the first great metropolis of the industrial age.

Photograph of a penny farthing, showing the characteristic very large front and very small rear wheels
Penny Farthing bicycle, c.1885

Bringing together the brutal Newgate whipping post and Nelson's magnificent jewelled sword, Booth's poverty maps and the astonishing Rhinebeck Panorama, World City captures the excitement of a city in the midst of tremendous change.

The Victorian Walk transports visitors back to the end of the nineteenth century, into an atmospheric area of original shop fronts and workshops. The world of the bank manager, the watchmaker, the tobacconist, and the pawnbroker are recreated, while window-shopping reveals the latest fashions in bonnets and trimmings, tin toys, novelties and cards.

Photograph of model of street, including an omnibus, trade carts, hansom cabs and a pony-phaeton as well as a policeman, a top-hatted gentleman a shoe shine boy, a lamplighter and other characters
Model of Piccadilly traffic, c.1875 made by by Constance Croker (née Noye) and Emily Chichester (née Noye) as children

A micro-gallery: Journeys through Victorian London brings city landmarks to you on screen. Using early film sequences, over 500 images and the views of contemporary commentators, it offers a more detailed look into 19th century life.

World City presents the definitive guide to the most exciting period of London's history.

 

Charting the rise of the modern city

This site is maintained by Adaptive Last modified: Wednesday, 30 January, 2002