The story of the sheer scale of the Port of London and how it turned Britain into a global trading giant is set to be told in an exhibition at the old West India Docks.
It aims to show how people and places on the Thames changed over the centuries and the impact they still have on London life today.
The display at the Museum of London Docklands in October includes live shipping trackers, showing the scale of Thames traffic with 50million tonnes of goods and 12,000 cargo vessels a year destined for or arriving from places around the world.
“The impact of the Port of London plays a vital role in our daily lives,” exhibition curator Claire Dobbin explained. “Our cultural landscape has been shaped by centuries of global exchange by people, products and ideas passing through which has influenced our language in the London we know today.”
The six-month free exhibition, bookable online, opens on October 22.
The museum is in a disused quayside warehouse of the former West India Docks that traded from 1802 and closed in 1980 to make way for the Canary Wharf development.
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