The Crime Museum Uncovered At The Museum of London [Review]

Adding reviews to my blog allowed me to share those experience that didn’t make my Edison Project list. Experiences that were spontaneous, but warranted coverage as they had the potential to inspire others in their own Edison Projects. This review falls nicely into that category. Working in Clerkenwell and often passing the Museum of London, I have always wanted to pay it a visit. As soon as I heard about The Crime Museum Uncovered exhibit, I had no excuses not to check it out.

To give you some background, the Metropolitan Police Service has a collection of objects from some of the countries most famous crimes. These objects are normally hidden from the general public in Scotland Yards Crime Museum, a museum previously restricted to police professionals and invited guests. For the first time ever, the Metropolitan Police’s Crime Museum is on public display at the Museum of London.

On the Friday Bank Holiday in April me and my girlfriend made our way into London to give the exhibit a look over. Given the considerable amount of crime thriller content we consume (Serial, Luther, Making A Murderer, Happy Valley, Jinx, Jo Nesbo and many more), this exhibit was right up our street. However, we left feeling slightly underwhelmed.

The exhibition was rammed throughout with little room to manoeuvre. Yes, it was a bank holiday, but it was a ticketed exhibition making it easy to control crowd numbers. This combined with small artefacts and descriptive blurb at hip level meant it was extremely slow moving and hard to consume in the manner it deserved. Whilst I am on the subject of museums and descriptive blurb, how frustrating is it when you are reading the description and then someone walks in the way and obscures the view of the passage you were reading from? This really grates on me.

Overall the showcase was interesting, but I think more could of been done on the curation of the crime cases on display. The small displays and case synopsis’s could of been broken down into stages based on a timeline of events in each case. Whilst I say this, I am not museum curator.

The biggest positive from our trip to the Museum of London was the rest of the museum. We both loved exploring the history of London and seeing the Olympic Cauldron from London 2012. There is a lot to see and engage with, that we spent a few hours perusing what was on display.

At this point you may be wondering what inspiration there is from this review? The Crime Museum Uncovered is only running until the 10th April, so it may be too late to see this exhibit. However, what about adding ‘Visiting the Museum of London’ or ‘Visit at least one museum each month’? I really like the prospect of adding that last one to my list next year.

For those interested in my progress on this years Edison Project, look out for some big news in the next few days. There has been something we have kept pretty quiet on for the past few months that I cannot wait to announce.

Item: [Review] The Crime Museum Uncovered at the Museum of London

Useful Links: Museum of London

Cost: Adult admission is £10, but access to the rest of the museum is free