Walthamstow

Transport museum founder receives royal medal after 25 years

He says Walthamstow is the “home of British transport” thanks to a number of ground-breaking achievements
By Nadoya Reid

Lindsay Collier helped found the Pumphouse Museum in 1997 (credit: Lindsay Collier)
Lindsay Collier helped found the Pumphouse Museum in 1997 (credit: Lindsay Collier)

The founder of a unique Walthamstow museum has received a royal honour after a quarter of a century celebrating transport history. 

Lindsay Collier, founder of the Pumphouse Museum, said he was “delighted” to have received a British Empire Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list last month.

Lindsay has had a passion for transport since his childhood growing up in Walthamstow and said his father would often take him to see the steam trains in Finsbury Park.

He told the Echo that Walthamstow is “the home of British Transport”, pointing to local achievements like the first aviation flight in 1909 and the first British motorcar in 1984.

Inside the Pumphouse Museum (credit: Pumphouse Museum)

Lindsay helped to set up the Pumphouse Museum in 1997 in order to “tell the story of Waltham Forest’s world-changing industrial achievements in transport”. 

Among its many exhibits, the museum holds two grade II-listed steam engines and a Victoria line carriage, provided by TFL, which is often used as a film set and a pop-up restaurant. 

However, Lindsay’s favourite piece is a replica of the B-type doubledecker bus, introduced in 1910 and built in Walthamstow, which is “the only one in the world”.

Thanks to the museum’s success, which sees more than 150 people visit every Sunday, Lindsay is now trying to secure a larger home and say it is his goal to see the borough’s transport innovations recognised – not only locally – but on a national scale.


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