About National Museums Liverpool
National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside was established as a national museum in 1986 because of the outstanding quality of its collections. In 2003 we changed our name to National Museums Liverpool. Our origins go back to 1851 and the founding of Liverpool Museum.
Today there are seven National Museums Liverpool venues, together attracting 2 million visitors in 2007:
The Museum of Liverpool Life, which opened in 1993, closed in 2006 to allow building work to start on a new Museum of Liverpool, expected to open in 2010/11.
The Customs and Excise Museum, which opened in 1994, was replaced in May 2008 with a brand new gallery in the basement of Merseyside Maritime Museum, 'Seized: Revenue and Customs uncovered'.
National Museums Liverpool's mission is to promote the public enjoyment and understanding of art, history and science. This is achieved through exhibitions, education, consultancy, archaeological excavation and fieldwork, scientific and historical research and building and collection care. In the past 10 years, National Museums Liverpool has won 18 national and international awards for education, tourism, architecture and scholarship.
National Museums Liverpool...
- is an exempt charity by virtue of Schedule 2 to the Charities Act 1993.
- holds in trust multi-disciplinary collections of world wide origin made up of more than one million objects and works of art. You can explore some of them here in our fun quiz, Top Treasures
- provides educational programmes and activities for school children, young people and adults, serving almost 480,000 students a year through formal learning initiatives alone
- opens to the public seven days a week 361 days a year
- is governed by a board of trustees. Learn more about our trustees
- receives an annual grant, currently £18.4m, from UK central government (through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
- generates income from a number of sources, employs 531 people and operates shops, cafés and conference services through NML Trading Ltd.
Each year National Museums Liverpool...
- welcomes over 2 million visitors
- handles more than 20,000 collection enquiries
- restores and conserves 3,000 objects and works of art
- provides more than 100 loans, involving up to 1,500 objects and works of art
- runs hundreds of courses, lectures, activities and events
- produces scholarly and popular publications
- organises major exhibitions
