The former Museum of Liverpool Life, which closed in 2006
The Museum of Liverpool builds on the success of the award-winning Museum of Liverpool Life. This original museum was housed in the old Pilotage and Salvage Association buildings on Liverpool's waterfront, in between the Albert Dock and Pier Head. Its popular displays looked at the life, work and leisure activities of Liverpool people from all walks of life over the last 200 years.
The first phase of the Museum of Liverpool Life opened in 1993 and featured three main galleries; Making a Living, Demanding a Voice and Mersey Culture. In July 2000 the display space more than doubled when three new galleries were added as part of the Into the Future project; City Lives, City Soldiers and the River Room.
With these additions and a packed programme of temporary exhibitions the museum soon became one of National Museums Liverpool's most popular venues. In fact it was so busy that the Pilotage building, with its limited floor space, could no longer accommodate the more than 300,000 visits a year it was receiving. To solve this problem the old museum is being replaced by a larger purpose-built Museum of Liverpool, which will be able to better represent the history of the city and can place Liverpool within a wider British urban context.
After 13 fantastic years the Museum of Liverpool Life closed its doors to the public for the last time on Sunday 4 June 2006, to allow preparations for building work for the new museum to begin.
You can find out more about the history of this great city by looking at the archive of past exhibitions held at the Museum of Liverpool Life, which includes our collections as well as loan items from the local community and other institutions.
A variety of unusual artefacts from the museum's collections are also featured in our online exhibitions.