Maybe its Because I'm a Londoner

Richard Cavendish looks at an exhibition at the Museum of London on the diversity of the capital.

The pearly East End cockney, the Sloane Ranger and the Hampstead trendy are over-used class-ridden stereotypes of three kinds of 'typical' and 'original' Londoners, and yet London is one of the world's most cosmopolitan and culturally diverse capitals. A new exhibition opening this month at the Museum of London, 'The Peopling of London', is the central focus of a major project which celebrates this diversity and re-assesses the museum's role as guardian of the capital's history.
 
The museum has recently undergone a restructuring, which has included the establishment of a specific marketing and public services department. From this perspective serious questions have been tackled afresh; who are the people the museum should be serving, and is it reaching them? Now should it approach the issue of a much-needed post-1945 gallery? (hopefully to be in place by 1996). And how can it create better ways of displaying London's history and drawing in the public? The Peopling of London project is the result.
 

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