National Museums Liverpool marks 40th anniversary with a new exhibition

National Museums Liverpool is marking its 40th anniversary with an exhibition which showcases some of its most loved and important treasures from across its many venues.

NML at 40 runs at the World Museum from Good Friday, April 3 to February 2027 and is free.

Visitors will be able to ‘dig, dive and delve’ into some of the vast and nationally important collections which are held by the network of venues, the only national museums group in England outside London.

The 40 objects included in the exhibition include rare artefacts from the Titanic, clothing that tells the story of one of Liverpool’s many cultural landmarks, masterpieces by world-famous artists and seemingly ordinary items that have a significant story to tell from Liverpool’s past.

Some have never been publicly shown before.

The items on show include a model of the Royal Snowdrop 'Dazzle' ferry; the door to the Hillsborough Justice Campaign Shop; Della Robbia pottery; Walter Richard Sickert's painting Bathers, Dieppe; a rare Beatles' gold disc from 1964 with an amazing history; two casts of the prehistoric Formby Footprints; 18th Century Liverpool porcelain and creamware; a stunning Liverpool Samba School headdress; bespoke jewellery; Albert Einstein's landing card; a football shield presented to Dixie Dean; a Shellbend folding boat and a Jewish refugee tablecloth.

Many exhibits were chosen by staff members who have been at the museums for 40 years or more, including Head of Sudley House and Lady Lever Art Gallery Pauline Rushton who was working at the Liverpool Museum in 1986, then part of the Merseyside County Museums service, and whose pick on display (from a shortlist of three) is a jacket from superclub Cream.

She explains: "It sums up the 1990s club scene in Liverpool and Cream is the epitome of a dance music night out. Everybody came from all over the country on a Saturday night, and Liverpool University even included Cream in its prospectuses as an extra reason to study in the city.

"I picked up the jacket in 1999 from the Cream merchandise shop in Slater Street - it's never been worn. I went in to buy it and when they found out it was for the museum collection they donated it, along with some other items."

Above: A jacket from superclub Cream. Photo courtesy of NML.

The exhibition forms part of NML's wider 40th anniversary celebrations and visitor's will be able to select a 'People's object' over the run.

Meanwhile wider programme of events will highlight some of the vital research and other work taking place across National Museums Liverpool venues – from botany and bugs to maritime culture and art conservation. 

The official National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside (NMGM) was formed with an Act of Parliament in February 1986 to secure the future of the region’s important venues which faced an uncertain future with the abolition of Merseyside County Council which had been responsible for their running until then.

The original NMGM comprised of the Liverpool Museum (now World Museum), Walker Art Gallery, the short-lived Merseyside Museum of Labour History which opened that spring in the County Sessions House, Maritime Museum, Sudley House and Lady Lever.

Over the past four decades the organisation - which was re-branded as National Museums Liverpool in April 2003 - has widened to include the International Slavery Museum (1994, currently being renovated and expanded), National Conservation Centre (1996, closed to the public since 2010 but where vital conservation work is still carried out), and the Museum of Liverpool – which opened in 2011, replacing and augmenting the waterfront Museum of Liverpool Life which operated between 1991 and 2006.

Above: A slideshow gallery of images of objects in the NML at 40 exhibition

And during that time, NML has welcomed an estimated 80 million visitors across its many sites, with the Museum of Liverpool recently being named the most popular attraction in the North of England in 2025 with almost 950,000 visitors.

World Museum was ranked third most visited attraction in the North (behind Liverpool Cathedral) with more than 676,000 visitors, while the Walker Art Gallery attracted more than a quarter-of-a-million over the same period.

Remarkably, NML has had only three directors over its 40-year history, from the late Sir Richard Foster who developed the NMGM from 1986 to his tragic death in 2001, Dr David Fleming and, since 2019, Laura Pye.

Joe Brook, head of audiences and media at National Museums Liverpool, says: “Marking 40 years of National Museums Liverpool provides us with an opportunity to look back on highlights of the past four decades, and celebrate our city’s huge impact on UK and international culture. 

“It's also an opportunity to look forward to the future. To think about the purpose and role of museums and galleries in not just telling stories of the past but shaping how we continue to change lives in the future.” 

NML at 40 runs at the World Museum in William Brown Street from Good Friday, April 3 to February 28, 2027.