British Empire and Commonwealth Museum

The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum was a museum in Bristol housed within a historic railway station designed by engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1840. Its collections included extensive photographic and film records documenting life across former colonial territories, particularly India and Africa, from the 1800s into the 1900s.

The museum opened in 2002 and operated until 2008, when its collections were transferred to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. Its establishment reflected growing interest in examining colonial history through preserved records and artifacts from across the former Empire.

The collection included 500,000 photographs and 2,000 films documenting daily life in former colonies, particularly from India and Africa between 1860 and 1970.

The museum no longer operates at its original location, but its collections are now housed in Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, which remains accessible to visitors. The relocated institution offers the same materials in a different setting within the city.

The institution published specialized books on colonial territories, including detailed accounts of police forces and military regiments from Northern Rhodesia and the East India Company. These rare publications offered perspectives from archival materials not readily available elsewhere.