Stories from the Collection at the Old Royal Naval College

The Collections Team and a group of dedicated volunteers care for more than 3,500 objects owned by the Greenwich Foundation. Archaeology, textiles, works of art, photographs, rare books and archival material spanning six centuries of the site’s history, from the Tudor Palace through Greenwich Hospital to the Royal Naval College.

The team also manages significant loans from institutions including the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Armouries, the London Museum, Canterbury Museums and Galleries, and Greenwich Hospital.

Whilst some of the key objects are displayed across the site in the Visitor Centre, Chapel, Admirals House and Foundation House, much of the Greenwich Foundation Collection is still awaiting cataloguing and fuller public access. Work is underway to change that, with funding applications in progress to support improved storage and wider use of the collection across programming, education, and digital content.

The highlights below offer a glimpse of what the collection already contains and what it may yet reveal.

Among the earliest are artefacts uncovered during archaeological excavations at Grand Square in the 1970s, objects from the lost Greenwich Palace, which stood here during the Tudor period at the end of the 15th century, cared for on behalf of Greenwich Hospital.

A hidden void discovered beneath a set of steps in 2011 revealed a different kind of assemblage, including crockery, medicine and drinking bottles, clay pipes, shoes, hats, and even tennis balls, sealed away and forgotten in the Victorian era, offering a vivid glimpse of daily life as Greenwich Hospital transitioned from housing naval pensioners to training naval officers as the Royal Naval College.

The Captain Guy Plantagenet Bigg-Wither Collection charts the career progression of the officer class during the late Victorian and Edwardian years, while the Royal Navy Uniform Collection traces the evolution of naval uniforms from the late nineteenth through to the mid-twentieth century.

The papers of Dr James Wingate Johnston, a Scottish naval surgeon who rose to Deputy Inspector General at the Royal Naval Hospitals at Deal, Chatham, and Greenwich, document colonial medical practice from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. The WRNS Second Officer Nina Wilkin Collection records her World War II service in the Women’s Royal Naval Service, capturing the clerical, operational, and leadership roles that women occupied during that period. 

More recent acquisitions deepen the collection’s breadth: over 30 documents acquired in 2024 trace the administration of Greenwich Hospital and the Royal Naval Asylum between 1809 and 1862, shedding new light on early welfare institutions of the Georgian and early Victorian periods.  

The Admiral Lord Nelson Collection, acquired in 2022 from a private collector, brings together more than 80 historical prints, commemorative objects and memorabilia alongside rare books and an extensive reference library, a fitting centrepiece for a site whose history is inseparable from the story of the Royal Navy itself. 

While much of the collection is in storage, selected highlights can be seen in our Visitor Centre and other spaces all year round. And beyond the display cases, the site itself is a masterpiece of English Baroque architecture to explore and discover for yourself. This year, as the Painted Hall marks its 300th anniversary, there has never been a better moment to visit and see, firsthand, the place where six centuries of history unfold.