Early material from the Layton and Lloyd collections includes:
Spears from Somalia:
A vase and dagger sheath from Algeria:
Zulu weapons from South Africa:
From the reserve collections; :
Islamic glass and ceramics, cameos from Egypt:
Islamic glass and ceramics from Syria:
Gold and a balance from Guinea :
Congolese coins:

There has also been some contemporary collecting by the Museum of London. Indo-African refugees from Uganda and Kenya are represented in the oral history collections, some of the interviews conducted in Punjabi, and the printed ephemera collection. The paintings collection includes work by the Nigerian – Finnish artist Timo Lehtonen.

The Collecting 2000 collection includes a pair of kabo jangery’ shoes of traditional Somali form donated by Somali Arts and Education and drums and outfits from the Adzido Pan-African Dance ensemble, material from Kimosi Kia Bakango, and the Nka Iban writers’ group.

African objects on the Museum of London's website

African objects on the Exploring 20th Century London website

Early material from the Layton and Lloyd collections:
Weapons and votive artefacts from India
A manuscript on lonthar leaves possibly from East India
Bronze artefacts, elephants tusks and weapons from Burma

A plaque, figure and pair of shoes from China

A bow from China/Mongolia

A sword, figures, dish, spears and two cloisonné panels from Japan

Daggers from Malaysia

From the reserve collections:

Ivory statue and chess pieces from Goa

In the Cheapside Hoard, spinels and moonstones from Sri Lanka and rubies, diamonds and garnets from India

Porcelain and tea blocks from China

Montabani jars and a lacquer cabinet from Indonesia

Montabani jars from Burma

Coins from Java

Porcelain, a silver ingot and a rare excavated 14th-century bronze vessel fragment from Japan.

Later material includes many examples of 18th and 19th century Chinese and Indian goods made for the Western market, for example Chinese fans, silks and porcelain and Indian printed cottons and shawls. There is a rare 17th century bodice made from Chinese silk.

The oral history collection includes lifestories from Vietnamese and Chinese Londoners, some done for the ‘Half the Sky’ exhibition which looked at women in the Chinese community. The art collection includes work produced by the artist Mao Wen Biao, during his time as artist in residence at the Museum in 1992.

The oral history collection includes many lifestories from Londoners of Pakastani, Indian and Bengali-speaking origin, some conducted in original languages. The photograph collection includes material collected under the heading ‘Asians in London’ in the 1960s.

Asian objects on the Museum of London's website

The Museum of London holds a handful of objects relating to Bangladeshis in London, although none of these are on display. They consist of oral histories, pamphlets from the GLA telling people where they can get assistance or how to challenge racism, an advertisment for Bangla TV, and material in Bengali from George Galloway's 2005 electoral campaign in Bow.

The object shown is an embroidered wall hanging made by members of the Southwark Bengali Women's Group. The hanging is made up of three embroidered images sewn to a cotton panel. The top image shows a village scene, the middle image a sail boat on a river and the lower image a snake charmer. On the panel is sewn 'Bengali Women's Group established 1936' in both Bengali & English. The style of embroidery is very typically from Bangladesh, called Nakshi Khatha embroidery meaning 'in the image of'. It is said the name comes from an old Bengali story, where two lovers were forbidden to see each other by their families. In order to communicate with her lover, the young women would send her lover embroidered images to express her love and affection.

Bangladeshi objects on the Museum of London's website

Bangladeshi material on the Exploring 20th Century London website

Much of the Museum's Chinese collection is made up of Chinese porcelain. The porcelain was brought back from China by the East India company. Their primary cargo was tea, with porcelain used as ballast. There is a small display in the Museum's late Stuart galleries of Chinese and Chinese-influenced tea ware of the time.

Material not on display includes many examples of 18th and 19th century goods made for the Western market, for example Chinese fans and silks. There is a rare 17th century bodice made from Chinese silk.

There are a few etchings relating to a Chinese-style pagoda and bridge, built in 1814 to celebrate peace with France. The etchings show how the pagoda subsequently burned down with some loss of life.

The oral history collection includes lifestories from Vietnamese and Chinese Londoners, some done for the ‘Half the Sky’ exhibition which looked at women in the Chinese community. The art collection includes work produced by the artist Mao Wen Biao, during his time as artist in residence at the Museum in 1992.

Chinese objects on the Museum of London's website

Chinese objects on the Exploring 20th Century London website

In late Victorian England there was an explosion of interest in all things Japanese, with plates, boxes and toys being decorated with Japanese designs, and an enthusiasm for lacquering - an artfom inherited from Japan. Lacquered items were referred to as "japanned".

Although there are one or two earlier items in the Museum of London collections - such as a sewing box decorated with Japanese scenes from 1800, the majority of the items reflect the Victorian Japan craze. Some items are imported from Japan, such as fans and toys - other toys and "japanned" boxes were made in the West.

In 1910 the Hungarian musician and impressario Imre Kiralfy put on a Japan-British exhibition at his grounds in White City. It included miniature Japanese Gardens surrounded by pagodas and a mini-railway that took passengers into a moutain reminiscent of Mount Fiji. The Museum of London holds much of the Kiralfy collection - including newspaper cuttings, posters, invitations, transcripts of talks, tickets, postcards and other ephemera from the 1910 exhibition.

There are a few pieces of ephemera from other London Japanese exhibitions including a programme for Tannaker's Japanese Village, Albert Gate, Hyde Park. There's also a negative of the Japanese Gardens at Bishopswood; and the Japanese Gate at Kew in 1959.

Anna Pavlova went to Japan in 1922 and came back to perform "Dances of Japan" at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. The collections include both the medal given to her in Japan, and the shoes she used for her subsequent Covent Garden performances.

The Museum of London also holds a handful of Japanese items obtained in modern collecting projects; kimonos from the 1960s; a micro mini skirt and ephemera from the early 21st century.

Japanese objects on the Museum of London's website

Material related to C18th / C19th sugar trade with the Caribbean, which touches on slavery, plus some material from abolitionist campaigns. The prints and paintings collections and printed ephemera collections include some images of named and unnamed African – Caribbeans in London settings. The Museum also holds some books and printed ephemera related to notable individuals such as Robert Wedderburn and Mary Seacole.

The paintings collection includes works from contemporary African Caribbean artists: Tam Joseph ( a view of the Notting Hill carnival in 1988) and Tony Phillip ( ‘History of London’ , a sequence of 25 etchings ). There are many oral history lifes tories related to first, second and third generation post-war arrivals from the British West Indies, including some filmed video histories.

The collection includes a poem by Benjamin Zephaniah, ‘The London Breed’, commissioned by the Museum in 1999 .

Caribbean objects on the Museum of London's website

Caribbean objects on the Exploring 20th Century London website

From the Layton and Lloyd collections: weapons and pottery with the ceramic items coming from Mexico and Peru.From the reserve collections:
A rare silver ingot from Peru and a huge Columbian emerald that provided the setting for a watch in the Cheapside Hoard

Central and South American objects on the Museum of London's website

Two large collections in the Museum cross cultural boundaries.The oral history collection includes individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, covering most countries of the world.

The Museum began to collect Londoners life stories in 1992 and from the beginning has always aimed to use oral history as a tool for documenting cultural diversity. The first major oral history collecting project mounted by the Museum, The Peopling of London, generated 100 hours of material covering 30 different communities: subsequent projects have focused on Chinese and African-Caribbean communities. In 1997 the Museum expanded the scope of recording by using freelance interviewers as community ‘experts’, often interviewing in their own language. This generated nearly 80 new interviews covering communities under represented in the archive, including Asians in East and West London, Turkish, Latin American and Vietnamese. This work continued with the London’s Voices project, which added new communities, Brazilians for example, to the list of those represented. Much of the oral history collection is accessible through the ‘London’s Voices’ section of the Museum’s web site. The major current oral history project is looking at London’s new refugee communities: Iraqi, Kurdish, Bosnian, Afghan, Tamil, South American and refugee academic. Most of these interviews are done in mother-tongues.

The photograph collection includes many images which speak to London’s cultural diversity in the post war period. The Henry Grant collection covers educational and welfare issues, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Collections of work from politicised photographers cover anti-racism and racial conflict in the 1970s and 1980s. A body of work by Magda Segal as part of the Peopling of London project depicted culturally diverse Londoners in their homes in the early 1990s. A large project by Ed Barber, showing portraits of individuals at all levels of the workforce in the City of London, underlines the diversity of London today.

Russian material from the reserve collections:
A few excavated sherds of post-medieval Muscovy glass
A rare excavated fragment of hemp
Rare post-medieval lead cloth seals, excavated from waterfront sites or as foreshore finds on the Thames.

The Museum has a large collection of material relating to the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, given to the Museum in the 1930s. Includes costume, personal memorabilia and photographs.

The printed ephemera collection includes a large archive related to the Hungarian entrepreneur Imre Kiralfy and his exhibitions at the White City.

Eastern European objects on the Museum of London's website

In 2005 the Kurdish Association in Hammersmith took the oral histories of Kurdish people living in London. Ten of these oral histories are now held at the Museum of London. They are not on public display.

From the Layton and Lloyd ethnographic collections:
a stone ploughshare, pipes, arrowheads, axes and a ceremonial paddle from the north-west coast of America
From the reserve collections:
Glass trade beads that were taken from London to the Americas in order to trade beaver pelts in return.

There are significant groups of material related to American firms in London, particularly Ford Cars, Firestone tyres, Woolworths and Selfridges department stores, McDonalds and American-style fast food restaurants.

The Selfridges material includes the lifts installed in 1928. The Firestone material includes the Art Deco gates to the factory and fragments of the coloured tiles that decorated the exterior. The Woolworth’s material is quite extensive and includes store fittings as well as examples of the goods sold in the stores.

North American objects on the Museum of London's website

Early material from the Netherlands in the reserve collections includes:
A large number of examples of ceramics - majolica, redwares, greywares and slipwares from excavations
Good quality post- medieval London prints
A very fine collection of post-medieval medals
A good collection of pistols
Two very fine post-medieval chairs
An Antwerp powder box, rare in UK
Later material includes extensive holdings of materials related to European individuals, merchants, firms or organisations from the 17th century to the present day, including
Workshop groups from Camerer Cuss clockmakers (German)
Silver, watches and silk manufactured by French Protestant Huguenots
Items of French fashionable dress, textiles and decorative arts
Dutch delftware
Examples of Italian silver and millinery
German penny toys from the late 19thc century
Items related to European city merchants and bankers such as Meyer Rothschild

The topographical print collection contains views of French, German and Dutch places of worship in London. The paintings collection includes work by the contemporary artist Michael Heindorff and 17th century work by 17th century Dutch artists, 19th century paintings and prints by Gustave Dore

Oral history life-stories include many accounts of European refugees fleeing fascism in the 1930s, including refugees from the Spanish Civil war.

The dress collection has work by contempoary designer Sophia Kokosolaki, of Greek origin.

North, West and Southern European objects on the Museum of London's website

From the reserve collections:A few good quality watches
A good collection of swords
Medieval and post-medieval cloth seals from waterfront excavations or as foreshore finds in London

French objects on the Museum of London's website

Find out about French objects in the Medieval London displays

From the reserve collections:
The biggest collection of ceramics in the UK – Pingsdorf, Langerwehe, Raeren, Cologne, Westerwald, Seigburg and Aachen Metals from Nuremberg, Augsburg and Solingen for swords, clocks, watches, armour etc
A good collection of medieval and post-medieval lead cloth seals, excavated from waterfront sites or as foreshore finds on the Thames.

German objects on the Museum of London's website

The Museum holds a couple of items relating to the presence of Greeks in Roman London. One object belonged to a man named Demetrius. It is a thin piece of lead, with writing on it in Greek asking Apollo to protect him from the plague. He would have worn in around his neck threaded on a cord. It is now on display in the Health and Hygiene case in the museum's Roman gallery. Demetrius probably lived in the 3rd or 4th Century AD.

There is also a leather shoe sole that has the word 'Hector' cut into it.

The Museum has also lent a tombstone of a Greek gladiator called Martialis to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. However, this is unlikely to have originated in London - it was probably purchased on a 'Grand Tour' of Europe. It was found in Islington in 1774, lost again, and finally resurfaced on the Tottenham Court Road in 1879.

From the reserve collections there are also Greek cameos and intaglios from the Cheapside Hoard. (The Cheapside Hoard was a box of 16th - 17th century jewellery dug up from beneath the floorboards of a house on Cheapside in 1912).

Early material from the reserve collections includes:
A very good collection of examples of ceramics - majolica, faience and north-Italian marbled slipware, all found in LondonMany examples of good quality pieces of Venetian glass. Group of late 19th century - early 20th century. material from the Ticinese Swiss Italian community in London, who were largely responsible for the development of the restaurant trade. The group includes an important banner from 1886 ‘Il Ticino’ Club Liberale-Conservatore Londra’ and wall panels from Pagani’s restaurant.

The collections also include:
Group of workshop material from Porselli’s ballet shoe makers of Covent Garden;
oral history lifestory of Elena Salvoni, famous Soho restaurateur who also gave the collection the restaurant’s appointment books
paintings by the contemporary artist Arturo di Stefano
large collection of work by the studio photographer Bassano
‘the Woodin albun’ contains late 19th century photographs of the Italian community in Saffron Hill.

Italian objects on the Museum of London's website

Italian objects on the Exploring 20th Century London website

From the reserve collections:
Fragmentary pieces of rare Islamic 14th and 15th century glass and ceramics from excavations.
A good collection of ceramics, both collected and excavated - Valencian lustreware from Catalonia; Isabella polychromes from Seville

Spanish objects on the Museum of London's website

The Museum of London has a handful of papers and photographs relating to the history of Gypsies and Travellers in London. Most are not on display, but you can see a representative sample by following the link below.

Gypsy and Traveller objects on the Museum of London's website

Travelling communities on the Exploring 20th Century London website

From the Layton and Lloyd collections:
From Australia – weapons
From New Zealand - a bronze copy of a Maori stone hand-axe, dated 1772 and one of only 6 (out of 100 made) surviving – taken by Captain Cook on his 2nd and 3rd expeditions; a carved box, a flax beater, weapons, an axe and an adze
Weapons, adzes and a sago-stirrer from New Guinea
Paddles from the Austral Islands
Weapons from Tonga
Wooden artefacts from Oceania
Weapons and a bowl from Fiji
Weapons from Tonga
Weapons from Melanesia
Necklaces of human teeth and stone and fishing hooks from the South Seas

Objects from Australia and New Zealand on the Museum of London's website

There are a few Australian items in the Museum of London, although most of these are not on display.

The Museum of London collected a handful of Australian ephemera at the time of its Peopling of London exhibition in 1992. This included magazines for Australians and New Zealanders in London, flyers and pictures. Samples of this material will be appearing online from April 2006 onwards (we will provide a link when these webpages go live).

Also of interest are a much earlier group of pamphlets dealing with women's suffrage. Australian women gradually got the vote between 1893 -1914, whereas women in Britain did not begin to get the vote until 1918, and it was still then restricted to the over 30s. Hence the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies in Britain published a number of tracts describing the success of suffrage in Australia (and also New Zealand).

Titles include "Where Women Have The Vote" and "How Women Use The Vote". They emphasise the social legislation passed in Australia since the enfranchisement of women.

There are also a handful of Aboriginal weapons from Australia in the Layton and Lloyd collection - an ethnographic collection held by the Museum.

Objects relating to Australians and New Zealanders on the Museum of London's website

There are a very few items relating to New Zealand in the Museum of London; these are not on display.

The Museum's ethnographic Layton and Lloyd collection includes some Maori objects from New Zealand. Items include a bronze copy of a Maori stone hand-axe, dated 1772 and one of only 6 (out of 100 made) surviving. The original was taken by Captain Cook on his 2nd or 3rd expedition. There is also a carved box, a flax beater, weapons, an axe and an adze.

There are a number of cuttings and pamphlets donated by the Suffragette Fellowship in 1950 that relate to women's voting rights in New Zealand. From 1893 all New Zealand women were allowed to vote, (although not to stand for election). By contrast the first women did not get the right to vote in Britain until 1914, and consequently women's rights campaigners in Britain used New Zealand as an example of a country where women's suffrage was working well.

For example there is a leaflet entitled "What Woman Suffrage Means in New Zealand" by Lady Stout, the wife of Sir Robert Stout, Lord Chief Justice and former Premier of New Zealand. It answers criticism of women's suffrage by referring to the author's experience in New Zealand. It was originally published as part of a letter to the Times, but reprinted by the Women's Social and Political Union.

In 1837 a panorama of the Bay of Islands, New Zealand was displayed in Leicester Square. The Museum holds an illustrated plan of this exhibition, with a 12 page written description.

Objects relating to Australians and New Zealanders on the Museum of London's website

A significant body of religious material was collected recently as past of the Faith Boxes project. Oral history interviews with Jewish, Christian, Sikh, Hindu and Islamic Londoners were added to the collection.

Collecting 2000 also produced a group of faith items, including a Quranic stand donated by London Central Mosque, a candle donated by Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark, a Buddha donated by the London Buddhist Vihara. Donors also included the Gurwara Singh Sabbha - London East, the Greek Orthodox church, the Shree Swaminarayan Mandir, several branches of the Society of Friends, the Young Jains, the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks and several Christian congregations.

Religious objects on the Museum of London's website

The Museum of London's collection of specifically Islamic objects and photographs is not large, and mostly consists of very recent objects. You can read about a few of them, along with a few paragraphs of background on Muslims in London at the link below.

Muslim objects on the Museum of London's website

Muslim objects on the Exploring 20th Century London website

Earlier material includes:
a 12th-century hanging Sabbath lamp, the best example out of 4 found from the UK
A group of finds from a rubbish pit of a late 13th-century Jewish house excavated in Milk Street in 1976 while nearby a medieval mikveh was excavated in 2001 (and may be preserved in the Jewish Museum - to be confirmed)
16th-century lead seals (applied to food to show that that it is kosher) excavated from waterfront sites or as foreshore finds on the Thames.

Later material includes items from Jewish firms or related to Jewish trade in particular a large collection of early 20th century wine making and bottling equipment from the kosher wine-sellars M Chaikin & Co. Ltd. of Brick Lane. This collection also includes printed ephemera and other material related to Dr Bernard Homa, a community leader and trustee of the synagogue in Fournier Street Spitalfields.

Material from other firms of Jewish origin, include a quantity of stuff related to Jo Lyons, including a ‘Corner House’ shop front and a ‘Nippy’ uniform. The costume collection has many items related to the Jewish East End tailoring trade. The Museum also has the surgery contents from Dr Barber, a Czechoslovak doctor of Jewish origins who settled in London after the war.

The 2D collections contain several 19th century images of synagogues, Jewish soup kitchens and other charitable initiatives. The ‘Woodin Album’ contains photographs of the late 19th century Jewish community in Whitechapel.

The oral history collection is particularly rich in material relating to Jewish London, from the 1890s onwards. This includes the tapes recounting memories of the Rothschild building, an East End tenement largely inhabited by Jewish families.

Jewish objects on the Museum of London's website

Jewish material on the Exploring 20th Century London website