WW1 Galleries at the Imperial War Museum

The new £40m WW1 galleries at the Imperial War Museum in London are absolutely spectacular. I was fortunate to be given a private tour during my visit to London last week, when I met IWM Director Diane Lees and discussed the museum’s plans to send a WW1 exhibition to Melbourne next year. The path through the gallery neatly juxtaposes action in various fields of conflict with what was happening on the home front at the time. So, for example, as the war becomes increasingly industrial, we see massed ranks of women taking up employment in the armaments factories.

The museum makes excellent use of technology with really eye-catching exhibits that are easy to touch and absorb the narrative. It covers the various fields of battle including the Western Front and East Africa, where my two grandfathers fought, as well as Gallipoli where Australian and British soldiers sacrificed so much.

Brendan Nelson, Director of Canberra’s National War Memorial, had told me about his own recent visit to the IWM. The two institutions work closely together, exchanging staff and experience. Australia’s War Memorial is also currently revamping its WW1 galleries, to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War.

Whilst in London I also visited the British Library to meet Director Roly Keating to discuss his recent visits to state and national libraries in Australia. Many of our cultural institutions have close relationships with their Australian counterparts. Roly kindly arranged for his curators to show me some of their Australia-related treasures. It was a particular privilege to read Captain James Cook’s log of his landfall at Botany Bay in 1770, written in his own handwriting.