Royal Artillery Museum
The Rotunda, Woolwich: home of the museum from 1820-2001
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| Established | 4 May 1820 |
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| Dissolved | 8 July 2016 |
| Location | Woolwich |
The Royal Artillery Museum, one of the world's oldest military museums, was first opened to the public in Woolwich in south-east London in 1820. It told the story of the development of artillery through the ages by way of an unrivalled collection of artillery pieces from across the centuries.
The museum had its roots in an earlier institution, the Royal Military Repository (established in Woolwich in the 1770s as a training collection for cadets of the Royal Military Academy); items which were once displayed in the Repository form the nucleus of the Royal Artillery Museum collection.
The museum continued in Woolwich until 2016. Following the closure that year of 'Firepower – The Royal Artillery Museum', the museum's historic collection has been placed in storage pending the establishment of a new Salisbury Plain Heritage Centre, scheduled to open in 2020, which is being publicised as the new 'Home of the Royal Artillery Collection'.
The Royal Regiment of Artillery was established by the Board of Ordnance in 1716. It began within the Warren (later renamed the Royal Arsenal) in Woolwich, which for some 250 years was Britain's principal ordnance manufacturing facility. In 1741 the Board opened a Military Academy within the Warren to train prospective officers for its Artillery and Engineer corps.
In 1778 Captain William Congreve set up a training establishment within the Warren, as an offshoot of the Royal Military Academy, to instruct officers in handling heavy equipment in the field of battle. His 'Repository of Military Machines' (soon given the title of Royal Military Repository ) was housed in a long two-storey building alongside the Carriage Works: cannons used for field training were stored on the ground floor while smaller items and models used for teaching purposes were displayed upstairs. Training initially took place on land to the east of the Warren and later moved to the woods to the west of Woolwich Common, close to the new Artillery Barracks, which are known still as 'Repository Grounds'. The Repository building itself was seriously damaged by fire (probably arson) in 1802. Those items that were saved or salvaged soon found a new home in the old premises of the Royal Military Academy, which itself moved from the Arsenal to Woolwich Common in 1806.
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