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Banners

The museum holds the largest collection of historic trade union and political banners in the world and is the UK’s leading authority on the conservation and study of banners. There are over 400 banners in the collection including the world’s oldest trade union banner, that of the Liverpool Tinplate Workers of 1821.

Visitors to the museum have the opportunity to see into the Textile Conservation Studio from the Textile Conservation Viewing Area which is in Main Gallery Two.  See our specialist conservators at work preserving delicate textiles and banners.

You can see some of our banners on the search our collections section of the website.

See the Textile Conservation Studio page for more information about what they do.

If you are interested in finding out more about banners and textiles, you might want to have a look at this booklet available to download  Taking Care of Banners booklet (450KB)

Once a year some of the most delicate banners on display in the museum galleries are changed.  This is so we can protect the most delicate ones and so we can display more banners from our large collection.  The photo gallery below gives you an idea of the work involved in displaying one of our large double sided banners (if you come and visit you can see it on display on level one).