• The mobile museum – believed to be the smallest in the UK – is inside a specially commissioned British Red Cross Defender 4x4
• The unique museum tells the story of 70 years of supporting communities in crisis around the world using the Defender and includes artefacts from the history of the partnerships and a full guided tour
• The free museum visited London's South Bank on 19 and 20 September 

Visitors to London’s South Bank had the chance to sit inside what is believed to be Britain’s smallest museum¹, thanks to the British Red Cross and Defender.

The humanitarian charity, which supports people affected by crises of all kinds in the UK and around the world, is celebrating 70 years of delivering vital support and assistance using the Defender 4x4. The partnership has helped 2 million people in more than 50 countries around the world, using more than 500 vehicles. 

To mark the occasion, Defender and the British Red Cross have commissioned a specially converted Defender 110 plug‑in electric hybrid to serve as a working museum, complete with artefacts, photos and audio guides. It brings to life the humanitarian work delivered from 1954 to the present day.

The museum and tour cover key points in the history of the partnership. This includes one of the first missions in 1954, when the Red Cross sent four nurses, each with a specially adapted Defender ambulance that had been turned into a mobile clinic, to remote communities in Kenya.

Another exhibit explores the British Red Cross’s humanitarian work in Ethiopia between 1978 and 1980 during a famine caused by a devastating drought followed by a plague of locusts. A medical kit that played a crucial role in treating ill people features in the museum.

Also on display are drawings from children in the midst of the relief response in former Yugoslavia where, throughout 1993, the Red Cross provided aid and care for those seeking sanctuary on all sides of the conflict.

Looking closer to home, the museum will also feature artefacts from a series of major floods in the UK between 2007 and 2013. Volunteers came from across the UK to assist in the largest domestic emergency relief effort since the Second World War. 

The museum also features an overview of relief efforts in the Turks and Caicos Islands after they were hit with the back‑to‑back disasters of Hurricane Hanna and Hurricane Ike, which destroyed 85 per cent of homes in 2008 and 2009. 

There is even a statue of a rescue dog from REDOG in Switzerland – a Defender‑funded search and rescue project, which trains disaster search dogs and rapid deployment teams. A large team of 14 dogs and 22 REDOG members were deployed to help with search and rescue efforts in the 2023 Turkey earthquake. The statue was donated by its creator, renowned animal sculptor Tanya Russell.