History of the Building

The Early Life of the Building

The building which houses the Museum of Childhood moved to Bethnal Green in 1866, having first been used as a museum building in South Kensington, in west London. Profits from the Great Exhibition of 1851 were used to buy land in South Kensington, where Prince Albert hoped to bring together a 'village' of museums, learned societies and educational institutions.

The first museum to settle on that site in 1852 was a Museum of Ornamental Art. Relocating in 1856-7, it took the name South Kensington Museum, known today as the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).

A temporary building was quickly erected - a three-aisled building with a frame of iron columns and girders, wooden floors, and a glass roof. The iron frame was braced by the walls, which were made of corrugated iron. The building was similar in construction to the Crystal Palace, the much larger building which had housed the 1851 Exhibition.

Designed and built by Charles Young and Company, it had no link with the Crystal Palace, although Sir William Cubitt, who was a Commissioner of the Great Exhibition, shared an office address with Young and Company, and may have been influential in them being awarded the job. No architects were involved in designing the utilitarian building, which was given the scornful nickname The Brompton Boilers because, with its metal exterior and three curving roofs, it looked like a group of steam boilers lying on the ground.

By 1865, the South Kensington Museum had expanded into more dignified permanent buildings, and the museum management decided that the iron building 'might usefully be divided into three portions, and that one of these portions might be offered to the proper authorities in the north, east, and south of London, respectively, at a nominal sum, in order to assist in the formation of district museums'.

A response to this offer came only from Bethnal Green, where local philanthropists had been lobbying for a trade museum for some years.

Re-erection at Bethnal Green

The building at Bethnal Green used the original iron columns and girders from the building's interior, but the corrugated iron walls were replaced with a new red brick exterior shell. Additional space was created by building basements under the outer aisles.

Unlike South Kensington, there were no internal partitions. The inside featured a floor of marble mosaic tiles, which were made by women prisoners in Woking jail, and the slated roofs, which were installed with glazing along the peaks.

Like many iron buildings, the 'Boilers' had leaked at South Kensington, and were subject to fluctuating temperatures inside. The sturdier building at Bethnal Green reduced, but did not altogether solve, these problems. Some of the roof drainage is carried down through the interior columns. The contractors who re-erected the building were S. Perry & Co., directed by the Works Office of the South Kensington Museum, and led by Colonel Henry Scott, an officer of the Royal Engineers.

The real work was, however, in the hands of one of his staff, the architect J.W. Wild. Wild is best known, aside from his museum work, for Christ Church, Streatham. His brick shell for the museum is plain, lightly articulated with mouldings, and Wild's main visible contribution is in the east and west façades with their semi-circular windows.

He also designed a complex frontage to the building, with a cloister enclosing a garden, entrance porticos, a clock tower, a curator's residence, a refreshment room and a library.The design was published in The Builder magazine in 1871, but it was never completed owing to a shortage of money.

A prominent decorative feature on the exterior of the building is the series of mosaic panels along the upper parts of the north and south façades.These were designed in the South Kensington Works Office by F.W. Moody and made by students at the Art Training School at South Kensington.They represent agriculture on the south, and science and art on the north.

Read more about how the building has changed in the 21st century...