British Red Cross Museum and Archives
A focused collections and archive hub preserving the British Red Cross’s material memory—from field uniforms and first-aid kits to posters, badges, and case files that trace humanitarian responses from the 19th century to today. Exhibits and research displays show how a volunteer movement scaled into a nationwide auxiliary to state health and civil defence, and how neutral emblems, training, and logistics evolved across conflicts and disasters.
Opening Hours
What's not to miss inside?
VAD & Home-Front Collections (1914–18)
Reveals the scale and organisation of Voluntary Aid Detachments that staffed hospitals, ambulances and convalescent homes during the First World War.Compare a VAD’s armlet, pass card and kit to see how identity and authority were standardised for civilian volunteers.
📍 Core gallery / research displays
Tracing the Missing
Documents from wartime ‘Wounded & Missing’ enquiries and later tracing services chart families’ attempts to locate loved ones through Red Cross networks.Follow a single case file across letters, index cards and telegrams to watch a search unfold step by step.
📍 Archives reading selections
Emblems, Law & Neutrality
Badges, armbands and guidance material explain how protected emblems (the red cross and related symbols) are governed under international humanitarian law.Spot the differences between early armbands and later standardized designs, and what each signalled to combatants and civilians.
📍 Thematic cases
Training & First Aid
Evolution of first-aid manuals, stretchers, dressings and resuscitation devices shows how evidence-based practice entered public life via volunteer training.Handle (or closely examine) consecutive handbook editions to see how treatment guidance changed with medical advances.
📍 Equipment wall
Inspire your Friends
- The British Red Cross began in 1870 as the National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in War, coordinating civilian medical relief during European conflicts before adopting its modern name.
- Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) mobilised hundreds of thousands of British volunteers in WWI—uniform items and papers in the collection chart how a civilian reserve was professionalised.
- The Red Cross ‘Wounded & Missing’ bureaux generated vast card indexes to trace prisoners of war and civilians—surviving files demonstrate early large-scale humanitarian data management.
- Fundraising posters and house-to-house appeal materials reveal how humanitarian branding and public health messaging co-evolved across the 20th century.
- Uniform armbands and vehicle markings in the collection illustrate the legal shift from ad-hoc identifiers to rigorously specified protected emblems under the Geneva Conventions.
