Library

London Museum's Library holds around 30,000 volumes (including monographs, periodicals and maps), collected over 200 years as both items of historical interest and research resources. Subjects span across London’s history and archaeology, to museum studies, conservation, fashion, art and social history.

We have over 5,000 rare books, volumes from the 15th to the mid-19th centuries, including these important individual collections:

• the Bell Collection – on the Great Plague and Great Fire, including contemporary accounts such as mortality bills and eye-witness reports
• the Tangye Collection of Cromwelliana, comprising books and manuscripts related to the English Civil War and the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell (the English Commonwealth, 1653–1659)
• the Warwick Wroth Collection of scrapbooks on Vauxhall Gardens and South London Pleasure Gardens
• the Harry Matthews Collection of fashion books and periodicals
• the Mary Young Papers – household accounts of an early 19th-century middle-class London family

Our cartographic collection includes more than 1,000 maps and plans, showing the city of London, its streets and buildings, from the 16th century onwards.

The museum's Library also includes the Port of London Authority Library Collection.

Please use our online catalogue to browse through our rich collection. We’re currently working on improving our existing records to make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for, so please bear with us if errors and duplication occur during your search.

If you’re a researcher, then our Collections Enquiries page has more information on accessing the Library’s collection.