Firepower: The Royal Artillery Museum is a military museum in Woolwich in south-east London, England, which tells the story of the Royal Regiment of Artillery and of the Royal Arsenal.
Although the museum was set up to preserve Royal Artillery (RA) history, it is in fact much more than a regimental museum as the RA has been involved in most British actions for over 200 years. Over two million men and women have served in the RA since its formation and human stories of bravery and sacrifice are told throughout the museum.
The museum is located in some of the former buildings of the Royal Arsenal, which was Britain’s principal ordnance manufacturing facility from the early 18th century until the mid-20th century. Since the turn of the millennium the Royal Arsenal site has been undergoing a mixed-use redevelopment, and Firepower is one of the anchor features of this project.
The forerunner of Firepower was the Royal Military Repository, which was established on the Royal Arsenal site in May 1778. After a fire in 1802 the surviving artefacts were rehoused in the Old Royal Military Academy. In 1820 the main collection was moved to the Rotunda on Woolwich Common. The collection moved to Firepower in April 2001.
All of Firepower’s buildings were once part of the Royal Laboratory Department, which controlled the manufacture of ammunition. The Old Military Academy and some of the other buildings used by Firepower are grade II listed. The adjacent Greenwich Heritage Centre tells the story of the local people of Greenwich who worked in the Arsenal and made the guns.
As so many people have served in the Royal Artillery, the museum’s archive of ‘Gunner’ records are much in demand with genealogists and family-history researchers. The archive’s experts have produced a handy guide for Royal Artillery family-tree researchers called “Is there a Gunner in your family tree?” which explains step by step just how to find out about Gunner ancestors and relatives.
