Discover the national collection of our 999 services.
The National Emergency Services Museum cares for a nationally significant collection that tells the powerful stories of the people, places and moments behind Britain’s emergency services. From iconic vehicles and life-saving equipment to uniforms, photographs and personal objects, our collections reflect over 200 years of service, sacrifice and innovation.
Actively collected, researched and shared, these objects help us explore how the Police, Fire, Ambulance and Coastguard services have shaped our communities — and how those stories continue today. Whether on display, in use for learning, or carefully preserved for the future, our collections sit at the heart of everything we do.
Explore the collection
Stories and research
If you are a researcher with a research query, or if you wish to access the collection for research, click here.
You will also find online resources to learn more about the emergency services, and information on our research projects.
Donating objects, stories and archives to the collection.
The National Emergency Services Museum (NESM) currently cares for around one million individual items telling the story of all of our Emergency Services from Fire, Police and Ambulance to Mines Rescue, Water Rescue and Air Rescue plus so much more including their social stories and memories.
With the vast developments across the services over the years we will always be collecting amazing stories, equipment, vehicles and documents from a wide range of departments and services.
We are extremely grateful for all donations from buttons to vehicles and from verbal memories to photos and documents.
We do ask that all donations are discussed with our team prior to your visit to the museum.
We are rarely able to accept walk in donations. All donations require a small object entry form to be completed on donation or loan of said item.
Please contact us on 0114 2491 999 or collections@visitnesm.org.uk for more info.
