Trade Expansion: 1600–1800
Meet the merchants, sailors and pirates who transformed London.
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Discover how business boomed across the city's docks.
This gallery tells the story of how London’s trade business grew, with ships from all over the world bringing back spices, tea and silk.
Britain was protected by an increasingly powerful navy, which helped challenge its rivals for trade and territory. This international expansion was mirrored in the growth of London’s population and port.
London was trading with the world: the East and West Indies, North America, Europe and the Baltic. Between 1600 and 1798, the number of boats using London’s ports rose from 3,000 to 14,600.
Port business was also booming onshore. Trade deals were being made across the city in coffee houses, the Royal Exchange and merchants’ counting houses.
More and more ships were coming into the city, but this meant traffic jams on the river were common. Smaller wharves were introduced in Bermondsey and St Katharine Docks to help cope with demand. Only small ships could load or unload at these, so congestion remained a big problem.
Trade Expansion is open 10am – 5pm every day at London Museum Docklands.
Please note that we'll start closing up the galleries at around 4.40pm.
There's lots to see, so we recommend you spend at least 15 minutes in the Trade Expansion gallery.
It's the second gallery on our recommended route and you'll find it on the Third Floor.
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London Museum DocklandsLondon, Sugar & Slavery: 1600 – present
Shining a light on London’s overlooked role in slavery
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London Museum DocklandsCity and River: 1800–1840
A city transformed by its river with new docks, new bridges and new tunnels
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London Museum DocklandsSailortown: 1840–1850
Experience the sights, sounds and smells of Victorian London in a recreation of a street in Wapping
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London Museum DocklandsFirst Port of Empire: 1840–1880
When London was at the centre of the British empire and world trade
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London Museum DocklandsWarehouse of the World: 1880–1939
London's docks housed everything you could think of, giving them the title: Warehouse of the World
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London Museum DocklandsDocklands at War: 1939–1945
How London survived and helped the war effort, from Dunkirk to D-Day
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London Museum DocklandsNew Port, New City: 1945 – present
How Docklands was reinvented for a new century – from rebuilding, dereliction and back to rebuilding
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London Museum DocklandsNo. 1 Warehouse: Intro gallery
Our building is a rare survivor of the old docks and its story is at the heart of this gallery
