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The Peace Museum

Museum
The Peace Museum
Photo: The wub, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

The Peace Museum in Saltaire, West Yorkshire is the UK's only museum dedicated to peace history and stories. Established in 1994, it originated from Gerald Drewett's idea in the mid-80s and Shireen Shah's dissertation proposal in 1990. The International Network of Museums for Peace supported its creation in 1992.…

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The Peace Museum in Saltaire, West Yorkshire is the UK's only museum dedicated to peace history and stories. Established in 1994, it originated from Gerald Drewett's idea in the mid-80s and Shireen Shah's dissertation proposal in 1990. The International Network of Museums for Peace supported its creation in 1992. Initially based in Bradford's Wool Exchange, it moved to Piece Hall Yard in 1998. The museum showcases temporary exhibitions like 'A force for peace? The History of European Cooperation' and 'Remembering the Kindertransport'. It closed its Piece Hall Yard site in 2020 and reopened at Salts Mill, Saltaire, in August 2024.

What this place is

The Peace Museum in Saltaire is a museum dedicated to peace history and stories.

People and events

Gerald Drewett proposed the idea in the mid-1980s. Shireen Shah developed it in a 1990 Bradford University study, and delegates at the 1992 international peace-museum meeting backed a Bradford museum. A five-year Joseph Rowntree Charitable Foundation grant allowed it to open in 1994.

How it was used

Changing displays used banners and other objects to examine European cooperation, protest, peacemaking and the Kindertransport. The museum moved from the Wool Exchange to Piece Hall Yard in 1998, closed that site in 2020 and reopened at Salts Mill in August 2024.

What survives

The collections were stored in the basement of Salts Mill between the Bradford closure and the Saltaire opening. They now support the country's only museum devoted wholly to peace, peacemakers and peace movements.

Why it mattered

A university study and an international meeting became a permanent public collection rather than ending as discussion. Its survival through the 2020 closure kept protest banners and personal peace stories together and available for new exhibitions at Salts Mill.

Sources for this account

Sources checked 16 August 2026.

From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) n12524535562

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Photo credits
  • Andrew Abbott, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Martin Clark, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • David Dixon, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • N Chadwick, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Christine Johnstone, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Humphrey Bolton, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Stephen Craven, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • habiloid, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • David Spencer, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • DS Pugh, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
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