The Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers

Museum of Brands

A small, but enthusiastic, group of six met for lunch at The Knight of Nottinghill pub on Ladbroke Grove on a sunny Thursday in September, prior to walking no more than one minute round the corner to the Museum of Brands, a collection devoted to consumer history.  The museum is crammed with packaging and other items largely from the Victorian period to date (although some much earlier), often with contents intact, hitherto forgotten toys and faded chocolate foils glinting to take us back in a time machine, to ‘another country’.  And most of us had more than one regret of ‘why on earth did I throw that away!’ The museum’s roots are with Robert Opie’s collection first displayed at the V and A in 1975, which expanded to a permanent exhibition in Gloucester from 1984, moving to London in 2002.  The present site opened in 2015.  Younger visitors to the museum must have tired of overhearing all the WCoTA party saying ‘I remember that’, ‘I had one of those’ (with all but one of us taking advantage of the museum discount for over 60s!).

As with many WCoTA events and visits: something I would have been unlikely to do otherwise, and very much enjoyed.  Largely entertainment, and a little education, with a group of good companions.  A perfect afternoon in London.

For those interested, the museum’s founder, Robert Opie, wrote/collated many books on consumer history and packaging, easily found new and second hand.

Carrie de Silva