If you have passed the Museum lately you may have noticed the arrival of a giant ship in a bottle which was formerly located in Trafalgar Square.

A campaign was launched by the Art Fund and the National Maritime Museum at the end of 2011 and successfully raised £362,500 enabling the National Maritime Museum to acquire and permanently display Yinka Shonibare, MBE’s much-loved sculpture.

In order to help explain the meaning behind the sculpture and its new home at the National Maritime Museum we met up with Yinka Shonibare and our very own Simon Stephens.

Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle from National Maritime Museum on Vimeo.

Today the National Maritime Museum is opening an exhibition to mark the centenary of the sinking of the passenger liner Titanic in 1912.

The Titanic has become the most famous maritime disaster in history, largely through the compelling personal stories told by survivors of the tragedy, in which over 1500 people lost their lives.

This exhibition will focus on some of these stories as told to Walter Lord who featured them in the book, A Night to Remember. The book was later made into a film by producer William MacQuitty. The exhibition will display for the first time a selection of items from the Lord-MacQuitty Titanic collection which was bequeathed to the National Maritime Museum.

The National Maritime Museum holds information about more than 20,000 Royal Navy warships from circa 1500 to 1950 and is now making this data available through the Warship Histories Project. This project involves the NMM partnering with Wikipedia to enhance our records as well as theirs in order to produce more accurate records for everyone. This is where we need you help!
Our data was compiled by a variety of people here at the Museum over many years and as a result is incomplete. We are asking for help to look at our data and improve or even create records for these vessels on Wikipedia which we will then use to improve our records and help people search our collections by vessels that they are related to.
We recognise how knowledgeable our audience are and we want to take full advantage of that fact. Please visit our project page to find out more about how you can contribute.

Conserving Nelson: Treatment complete from National Maritime Museum on Vimeo.

H3 has returned to public display after a thorough cleaning and cataloguing. This video captures Jonathan’s feeling about the project as well as the timekeepers move back into its showcase.

Conserving the H3 Timekeeper part 6 from Royal Observatory Greenwich on Vimeo.