Museum of London Docklands: A Trip to Sailor Town

London Docklands

I’ve tried to let some time pass between writing this blog and my visit to the Museum of London Docklands to see if my initial disappointment would subside and I could gain some objectivity. However, on this occasion that logic doesn’t appear to have worked because I still feel quite disappointed by my recent visit and am left feeling that the museum has so much potential, but that has yet to be fully realised.

Traveling out to the Docks is not something I get to do very often and my first impressions were really good. I was excited to be there and excited to visit one of the major London museums that I hadn’t visit before. The sense of atmosphere was striking. The juxtaposition of old against new and the character of the former warehouse building, where the museum is located, was exactly as I’d envisaged. It didn’t matter that the warehouse now houses a museum and various restaurants and bars; you could just imagine it once bustling with industry, as ships were unloaded and produce from around the world was moved into storage. It still has that Victorian age vibe and it felt as if things had happened there.

Museum Location

I think the trouble is I went with an agenda. My fascination with the docks ties in with 19^th century imperialism and… wait for it…. the exotic animal trade. That’s why I’m interested in the docks and surrounding area - for the role they fulfilled in the trade. So I was quite disappointed at how little this topic featured in the narrative told within the museum. There were limited references - the odd twentieth century photograph, whale jaw bones from the late 1700s found in the Thames; a cabinet of curiosities featuring animal products bought in from around the world, ostrich feathers, eggs, shells and ivory; while I also honed in on a reference to the gifting of turtles. It’s there I suppose, but in fleeting references and I just feel so much more could have been made of it – as a hook, to capture people’s interest who might not otherwise find the docks of interest. Perhaps I had hoped for too much.

However, that lack of substance didn’t just apply to the animal trading side of things. I’m fortunate to be aware of how much trade was being done in London across the Victorian period and preceding that, but as a visitor I didn’t really get a sense of that from the museum. I mean it’s there within the narrative, but the impact and sheer scale of it just gets lost. I’m not entirely sure how you would convey it, but it just felt very flat. I can’t really explain it. Even galleries that you would think could have bought in some emotion, like the London, Sugar & Slavery and Docklands at War, didn’t really do so.

Animal Related Items

Don’t get me wrong the topics covered are fascinating; they were just not presented very well. Well that, or, they’ve struggled to stand the test of time. Perhaps my view on this is sort of like the struggle I had with the IWM before its refurbishment? Times have changed and as visitors, we’ve begun to expect something different now. We don’t want a “book on the wall” approach, we want to be engaged, enticed and intrigued. We want to be able to control our “learning journey”, by reading more about the bits we are interested in and leaving the rest and to do that the information needs to be presented in a particular way. Small chunks, with “sign post” headings, images, eye catching quotes, directionality, and a strong narrative.  The museum has the content; the design is just somewhat outdated.

There is part of me that feels I am being overly critical and I probably am because there were people clearly engaging with the exhibits, I just felt disappointed. And perhaps that’s the risk of going with a preconceived idea of what you’ll find, or hope to find.

The nearest we got to anything particularly strong in terms of the animal trade was in Sailortown, which features the ‘Animal Emporium’ of George Bignold. Great, we have a recreation of his shop with accompanying sound effects and objects such as skulls and shells, but there was no information and it just felt like there was a missed opportunity to really entice people’s interest. I mean a group of 40+ schools kids just strolled past it without stopping to engage and yet, I know it’s something people find interesting when they know a little more about.

Advert in Sailor Town

Now hands up, this is my area of expertise and one I want to tell everyone about it, but it need not have been this element that captured peoples interest, it could have been barrel making or knot tying – I don’t know, but there was nothing really to interact with, no single industry that left an overriding impression. You had to read and observe, occasionally watch (if the screen wasn’t being affected by technical issues, as most were on this visit) – it wasn’t a very forceful transmission of knowledge and I think actually it needed it to drive the museum narrative home. It needed a wow factor.

It’s a shame because the history of the docks is so colourful and multicultural, with interesting events and characters, but none of that really came across. Social history is the hook for me, I like to know about people and their stories and how that fits into the historical narrative, but the museum seem to have opted for themes within chronology and I don’t think that particularly works. One of my favourite bits was the small exhibit on East End identity, looking at both historic and modern perceptions, because it took a different approach and linked the two different periods together, making direct cultural references. It also used a range of tools to transmit that, from audio-visual to objects and texts. That had the “wow factor” I was looking for.

I am glad that I went and got to experience the Museum, it was interesting and I did take some nuggets of information away, the overall experience just felt flat. I know that isn’t a useful term to come back too, but I can’t think of how to describe it any other way. It just needs shaking up – making it more interactive with some wow factor, if it wants to keep pace with the other London museums. I mean in the Museum of London itself can achieve that, why not its sister branch?

Final Thoughts:

• I was surprised to learn…. That the Romans built the first timber bridges across the Thames in 110AD and were only replaced by stone c.1176-1209.
• I hadn’t realised that…. There was an African Community in Seven Dials that pre-dates 1778.
• I was left wondering… what on earth a Hogshead was. We narrowed it down to a measurement of some sort but it’s taken some post-visit research to discover that it is in fact a measurement, usually for beer and ale, that in the UK (after 124 adoption of the imperial system) was equal to 54 imperial gallons or approximately 245.49 litres.