St Philip’s Church, Newark Street, Whitechapel, E1 2AA

Phone:

020-7377 7608

Website:

www.bartshealth.nhs.uk/about-us/museums,-history-and-archives/the-royal-london-museum

Opening times:

Mon–Fri 10:00–16:30

How to get there:

Tube: Whitechapel

Entry fee:

Free

Additional information:

Café (in hospital) and shop

Located in the crypt of the hospital’s former church of St Philip and St Augustine, now a medical library, the museum tells the story of The London Hospital (founded 1740), once Britain’s largest voluntary hospital. Refurbished in 2002 and arranged in chronological order in three sections covering the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, some of the items were originally collected by Henry Wellcome. Displays cover the history of healthcare in the East End generally, as well as of the hospital itself, featuring sections on children and health, early surgery, Victorian doctors, Dr Barnardo, early X-rays and the hospital in the two world wars. A display on forensic medicine sponsored by crime writer Patricia Cornwell covers the Whitechapel ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders, and Christie’s murders at Rillington Place. Other highlights include a video about Joseph Merrick (the elephant man), the last letter of Edith Cavell—the nurse executed by the Germans in 1915 for helping Allied soldiers to escape occupied Belgium—and a fragment of George Washington’s false teeth.