I Went To The National Maritime Museum in London to View The Pirate Exhibition!
By JimmiWazEre
The fiercest opinionated tabletop gaming chap to sail the seven seas
TL;DR:
I visited London’s National Maritime Museum to see the pirate exhibition, and I brought a bunch of pictures and piratey facts for my readers to enjoy.
Introduction
Now then, it was my birthday the other day so at my request (because I’m on such a Pirate facination at the minute, eagerly awaiting beginning my first Pirate Borg campaign!), Mrs. WazEre packed me up and took me down to London to visit the Pirate exhibition on at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich.
Firstly, Bristol - sort yourself out! You’re the home of Blackbeard the pirate and yet you’re telling me you don’t have a dedicated pirate or Blackbeard museum? That’d be like Nottinghamshire not having a Robin Hood museum. This was, ofcourse, my first port of call when I was planning places to go, and I was bitterly disappointed by Bristol’s utter failure!
Additionally, I investigated Cornwall, there’s museums and ships and cool things the more South West you go, but the transport networks to Cornwall is basically a joke, I’d be looking at half a day’s worth of expensive travel no matter how I sliced it, which is firmly out of the question - travelling sucks.
So, all ranting aside, London it was! A mere two hours on the train and we got to stay overnight at my brother in law’s house. (Thanks Phil!).
The exhibition was pretty general I’d say, and I’d have liked to to go into deeper focus on fewer elements, eras, or personalities. Instead it covered a broad range covering cultural impact, piracy in the ‘West Indies’, off Africa and China, and eras from the 1600s right up to the modern day. A pretty cool overview.
It’s photo time!
Ha, this is like when you go on holiday and then you show all your mates in the office your holiday photos. I sincerely hope that you find it more interesting than I would in that situation!
Pirates influence on Culture
Pirates have cemented their place in human culture quite firmly, with hundreds of entries ranging from books, films, tabletop games and computer games. Below, we have my childhood favourite game; The Secret of Monkey Island by Lucas Arts in 1990, Sid Miers Pirates! by Micropose in 1987, and a diorama based upon R L Stevenson’s Treasure Island 1883
Model Ships
There were a range of masted vessels on display from across the eras, ranging from single masted ‘sloop style’ ships, to multi-masted, square rigging. There was even a model of the Flying Dutchman - the legendary Ghost Ship allegedly captained by Davy Jones himself according to the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
Artefacts - Weapons and Tools
I enjoyed seeing the different weapons and tools that have been preserved. These were all kept in glass cases to protect them from the Cheeto’d fingered masses, which caused a bit of reflection on the photos. Apologies for that! From left to right:
A display of 18th-century pirate and naval weapons, including flintlock pistols, muskets, cutlasses, powder horns, and a blunderbuss. Quite the brutal mix of naval standard issue and stolen arms that sailors and sea rogues were armed with during the Golden Age of Piracy.
A 17th-century flintlock pistol made of iron, brass, and wood. It’s the same kind of weapon Robert Louis Stevenson immortalised in Treasure Island.
A display of 19th-century naval and colonial weapons, including an ornate officer’s sword, boarding pikes, a harpoon, and a ship’s gun
A mid-18th-century mariner’s compass, made by Johnathan Eade around 1750
Artefacts - Documentation
These are pretty cool, from top left to bottom right as follows:
Charles Price’s 1730 “Chart of Hispaniola with the Windward Passage” captures the Caribbean at the exact moment piracy was being stamped out. This was the same sea lane once haunted by Blackbeard now redrawn for the navy captains sent to hunt his kind.
A watercolor of H.M. Brig Columbine (Commander John Dalrymple Hay) shows the ship during the Second Opium War (1856–60), likely off the Chinese coast.
A British royal decree intended to combat the surge of piracy and privateering in the Americas, likely dating from around 1687–1688 (James II’s reign).
Another watercolor from the same artist shows H.M. Steam Sloop Fury (Commander Jas. Wilcox) attacking piratical junks off Shapoo (Zhapu), China, on Oct 20, 1848.
The third edition of A General History of the Pyrates first published in 1724 by “Captain Charles Johnson” — widely believed to be a pseudonym for Daniel Defoe — is the book that defined the modern pirate myth, turning real figures like Blackbeard, Mary Read, and Anne Bonny into enduring legends of the Golden Age of Piracy.
This 1725 Dublin edition of A General History of the Pyrates features the first known printed image of Blackbeard — the fearsome portrait that cemented his legend as the archetypal pirate, blending fact and fiction in the book that shaped how the world still imagines piracy today.
Piratey Paintings
Not gonna lie, I think these were my favourite bits. I’m particularly fond of the Bombardment of Algiers. That one was massive too, like about 2x1 meters or near abouts. Anyway - some details, from top left to bottom right:
Dominic Serres, The Capture of Geriah, February 1756 (painted 1771).
Willem van de Velde the Younger, Spanish Men-of-War Engaging Barbary Corsairs (c.1675–1680)
George Chambers Senior, The Bombardment of Algiers, 27 August 1816 (1836). A sweeping portrayal of the Anglo-Dutch fleet’s assault on Algiers, capturing the decisive moment when maritime power was wielded to end Christian slavery in the Barbary ports.
William Lionel Wyllie, Davy Jones’s Locker (1890). An underwater vision of a shipwreck reclaimed by the sea.
Sir Thomas Lawrence, Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth (c. 1797). Pellew was the hero of the Bombardment of Algiers, painted by Britain’s foremost portraitist at the height of his fame.
Richard Paton, View of Port Royal, Jamaica (c. 1758). Seascape of Britain’s Caribbean stronghold, painted by one of the Royal Navy’s favoured artists during an era when Port Royal had transformed from pirate haven to imperial naval base.
Conclusion
So there we go. I hope you found this interesting, and if you’d like to visit the exhibition, I believe it’s running until 4th January 2026!
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Catch you laters, alligators.
Pirates have cemented their place in human culture quite firmly, with hundreds of entries ranging from books, films, tabletop games and computer games.