Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain has had a museum collection since 1842, which continues to be managed by the RPS today at its offices in Lambeth. The exhibits cover all aspects of British pharmacy history, and include:

• Traditional dispensing equipment.
• Drug storage containers.
• Fine "Lambeth delftware" dating from the 17th and 18th centuries.
• Proprietary (brand name) medicines dating from the 18th century to the present day.
• Bronze mortars.
• Medical caricatures.
• A photo archive.

Since 2002 the Society has concentrated on developing the collection of historical and contemporary proprietary medicines.

The ground floor part of the museum in the RPS reception area is open during normal working hours, featuring displays on themes from The Evolving Pharmacy and Lambeth’s Pharmacy Past, to Pharmacy and Nature, and Making Medicines. Visitors can also find out how pharmacies have changed over time, and compare today’s experiences with how you trained to be a pharmacist in the 1800s.

But the main parts may only be visited by appointment. In 1983 the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain donated over 10,000 historic specimens of materia medica, including crude drugs, herbarium sheets and slides to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

This material is now housed in the Economic Botany Collection (EBC) at Kew. The museum is a member of the London Museums of Health & Medicine.

Services
The Museum offers a range of historical services based on the information, archives and objects we hold. 

If you are a researcher, student, teacher, or simply interested in pharmacy history, we have a wide range of online resources to provide you with ways to find out more. 

The majority of items in the collections are kept off-site safely stored for future generations. If you would like to see any objects or images from our collections, please contact us to make an appointment. 

A separate collection of Scottish historical material is maintained at the Scottish Department in Edinburgh. 

Find out more about our services.

Information sheets
For more information about the history of pharmacy please visit our museum information sheets page.

Events
The Museum runs a programme of events throughout the year. Find out more about our future museum events.

Schools

• Informal tours of our vast, weird and wonderful collection
• Object handling sessions to develop a greater understanding of how people lived in the past
• Schools loans boxes for KS1 and KS2 - The Medicine Chest
• Citizenship - Pharmacy Debate Packs
• Science talks and workshops- "Making and Taking Medicines: Past, Present and Future"
• Downloadable resources on 20th century medicine for secondary school teachers, particularly those teaching Year 9. These resources have been developed in conjunction with the BDA Dental Museum. Visit our Health Histories webpage for further details
• Antibiotics resource designed for Key Stage 4 available on the website