The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 2,817,852 visitors in 2025.

Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Science Museum does not charge visitors for admission, although visitors are requested to make a donation if they are able. Temporary exhibitions may incur an admission fee.

It is one of the five museums in the Science Museum Group. The group changed its name from the National Museum of Science and Industry to Science Museum Group in 2012.

Founding and history The museum was founded in 1857 under Bennet Woodcroft from the collection of the Royal Society of Arts and surplus items from the Great Exhibition as part of the South Kensington Museum, together with what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum. It included a collection of machinery which became the Museum of Patents in 1858, and the Patent Office Museum in 1863. This collection contained many of the most famous exhibits of what is now the Science Museum.

In 1883, the contents of the Patent Office Museum were transferred to the South Kensington Museum. In 1885, the Science Collections were renamed the Science Museum and in 1893 a separate director was appointed. The Art Collections were renamed the Art Museum, which eventually became the Victoria and Albert Museum.

When Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone for the new building for the Art Museum, she stipulated that the museum be renamed after herself and her late husband. This was initially applied to the whole museum, but when that new building finally opened ten years later, the title was confined to the Art Collections and the Science Collections had to be divorced from it. On 26 June 1909 the Science Museum, as an independent entity, came into existence.

The Science Museum's present quarters, designed by Sir Richard Allison, were opened to the public in stages over the period 1919–28. This building was known as the East Block, construction of which began in 1913 and was temporarily halted by World War I. As the name suggests it was intended to be the first building of a much larger project, which was never realized. However, the museum buildings were expanded over the following years; a pioneering Children's Gallery with interactive exhibits opened in 1931, the Centre Block was completed in 1961–3, the infill of the East Block and the construction of the Lower & Upper Wellcome Galleries in 1980, and the construction of the Wellcome Wing in 2000 result in the museum now extending to Queen's Gate.

Until 1984 the Science Museum (and also the Victoria and Albert Museum) were part of the Civil Service. During the twentieth century it lay within the Board of Education, then the Ministry of Education and finally the Department of Education and Science. The National Heritage Act 1983 created a Board of Trustees and vested the collections (which had formerly been vested in the relevant Minister) in the Board. Today it receives funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to which the Director is accountable.

Centennial volume: Science for the Nation The leading academic publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, published the official centenary history of the Science Museum on 14 April 2010. The first complete history since 1957, Science for the Nation: Perspectives on the History of the Science Museum is a series of individual views by Science Museum staff and external academic historians of different aspects of the Science Museum's history. While it is not a chronological history in the conventional sense, the first five chapters cover the history of the museum from the Brompton Boilers in the 1860s to the opening of the Wellcome Wing in 2000. The remaining eight chapters cover a variety of themes concerning the museum's development.

Galleries The Science Museum consists of two buildings – the main building and the Wellcome Wing. Visitors enter the main building from Exhibition Road, while the Wellcome Wing is accessed by walking through the Energy Hall, Exploring Space and then the Making the Modern World galleries (see below) at ground floor level.

Main building – Level 0

The Energy Hall

The Energy Hall is the first area that most visitors see as they enter the building. On the ground floor, the gallery contains a variety of steam engines, including the oldest surviving James Watt beam engine, which together tell the story of the British Industrial Revolution.

Also on display is a recreation of James Watt's garret workshop from his home, Heathfield Hall, using over 8,300 objects removed from the room, which was sealed after his 1819 death, when the hall was demolished in 1927.

Exploring Space

Exploring Space is a historical gallery, filled with rockets and exhibits that tell the story of human space exploration and the benefits that space exploration has brought us (particularly in the world of telecommunications). Its principle exhibit is The Apollo 10 Command Module Charlie Brown, which orbited the Moon 31 times in 1969.

Making the Modern World

Making the Modern World displays some of the museum's most remarkable objects, including Puffing Billy (the oldest surviving steam locomotive), Crick's double helix, and the command module from the Apollo 10 mission, which are displayed along a timeline chronicling man's technological achievements.

A V-2 rocket, designed by German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, is displayed in this gallery. Doug Millard, space historian and curator of space technology at the museum, states: "We got to the Moon using V-2 technology but this was technology that was developed with massive resources, including some particularly grim ones. The V-2 programme was hugely expensive in terms of lives, with the Nazis using slave labour to manufacture these rockets".

Stephenson's Rocket used to be displayed in this gallery. After a short UK tour, since 2019 Rocket is on permanent display at the National Railway Museum in York, in the Art Gallery.

Main Building – Level 1

Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries The Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries is a five-gallery medical exhibition which spans ancient history to modern times with over 3000 exhibits and specially commissioned artworks. Many of the objects on display come from the Wellcome Collection started by Henry Wellcome. One of the commissioned artworks is a large bronze sculpture of Rick Genest titled Self-Conscious Gene by Marc Quinn. The galleries occupy the museum's entire first floor and opened on 16 November 2019.

Main Building – Level 2

The Clockmakers Museum The Clockmakers Museum is the world's oldest clock and watch museum which was originally assembled by the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in London's Guildhall.

Science City 1550–1800: The Linbury Gallery The Science City 1550–1800: The Linbury Gallery shows how London grew to be a global hub for trade, commerce and scientific enquiry.

Mathematics: The Winton Gallery The Mathematics: The Winton Gallery examines the role that mathematicians have had in building our modern world. In the landing area to access the gallery (stair C) is a working example of Charles Babbage's Difference engine No.2. This was built by the Science Museum and its main part completed in 1991, to celebrate 200 years since Babbage's birth, and was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects.

Information Age

The Information Age gallery has exhibits covering the development of communications and computing over the last two centuries. It explores the six networks that have transformed global communications: The Cable, The Telephone Exchange, Broadcast, The Constellation, The Cell and The Web It was opened on 24 October 2014 by the Queen, Elizabeth II, who sent her first tweet from here.

Main Building – Level 3

Wonderlab: The Equinor Gallery One of the most popular galleries in the museum is the interactive Wonderlab:The Equinor Gallery, formerly called Launchpad. The gallery is staffed by Explainers who demonstrate how exhibits work, conduct live experiments and perform shows to schools and the visiting public.

Flight The Flight gallery charts the development of flight in the 20th century. Contained in the gallery are several full sized aeroplanes and helicopters, including Alcock and Brown's transatlantic Vickers Vimy (1919), Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, as well as numerous aero-engines and a cross-section of a Boeing 747. It opened in 1963 and was refurbished in the 1990s.

Wellcome Wing

Power Up (Level 1) Power Up is an interactive gaming gallery showcasing the history of video games and consoles from the past 50 years. Visitors can play on over 150 consoles, featuring consoles from the Binatone TV Master to the Play Station 5.

Tomorrow's World (Level 0) The Tomorrow's World gallery hosts topical science stories and free exhibitions including:

Mission to Mercury: Bepi Columbo Driverless: Who's in control? (exhibition ended January 2021)

IMAX: The Ronson Theatre (Entrance from Level 0) The IMAX: The Ronson Theatre is an IMAX cinema which shows educational films (most in 3-D), as well as blockbusters and live events. It features a screen measuring 24.3 by 16.8 metres, with both a dual IMAX with Laser projection system and a traditional IMAX 15/70mm film projector, and an IMAX 12-channel sound system.

Who Am I? (Level 1) Visitors to the Who Am I? gallery can explore the science of who they are through intriguing objects, provocative artworks and hands-on exhibits.

Energy Revolution: The Adani Green Energy Gallery (Level 2) Energy Revolution: The Adani Green Energy Gallery explores how the world can generate and use energy more sustainably to urgently reduce carbon dioxide emissions from global energy systems and limit the impact of climate change.

Temporary and touring exhibitions The museum has some dedicated spaces for temporary exhibitions (both free and paid-for) and displays, on Level -1 (Basement Gallery), Level 0 (inside the Exploring Space Gallery and Tomorrow's World), Level 1 (Special Exhibition Gallery 1) and Level 2 (Special Exhibition Gallery 2 and The Studio). Most of these travel to other Science Museum Group sites, as well as nationally and internationally.

Past exhibitions have included:

Sustaining Beauty – 90 years of art in engineering, on the evolution of design and engineering behind Alfa Romeo's cars (2001–2002). Bond, James Bond, an interactive James Bond themed exhibition featuring a behind-the-scenes exploration of the production of the film franchise (2002–2003). The Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy – The Exhibition, an exhibition featuring props and costumes from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy and focusing on the special effects used in the films (2003–2004). Future Face, on the science behind human faces and speculation about the future of cosmetic surgery and digitally enhanced faces (2004–2005). Pixar: 20 Years of Animation, an inside look at the art and technology behind American computer animation studio Pixar over the past 20 years (2006). The Science of Survival, an exhibition that allowed visitors to explore what the world might be like in 2050 and how humankind will meet the challenges of climate change and energy shortages (2008). Wallace and Gromit present A World of Cracking Ideas, a Wallace & Gromit themed exhibition designed to get children thinking about design and invention (2009). Codebreaker, on the life of Alan Turing (2012–2013). 3D: Printing the Future, an exhibition that featured 3D-printed models by Stratasys, and also showcased Pneuma2, a 3D-printed sculpture inspired by the human lung and designed by Israeli professor Neri Oxman (2013). Unlocking Lovelock, which explored the archive of James Lovelock (ended 2015). Cosmonauts: Birth of Space Age (ended 2016).