London Museum (1912–1976)

The museum acquired the Cheapside Hoard in the same year, a cache of early Stuart and Elizabethan jewellery.

[1] Two years after opening, the collections were moved to Lancaster House in St James's, and the museum remained there until World War II.

Some of the galleries at Lancaster House reopened to the public in 1942, but in November 1943 the building was requisitioned by the Ministry of Works as a conference centre and base for the new European Advisory Commission, the museum retaining only the basement for storage of its collections.

After World War II, attempts to reclaim Lancaster House for the museum's use failed.

Eventually in 1948 George VI agreed that the museum might be accommodated once more in part of Kensington Palace, this time on the lower two floors, and it reopened there in July 1951.