The new director of The Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset, has swapped one set of tracks for another on his journey to build on the military museum’s success.
Chris Price, who was chief executive officer of the North Yorkshire Moors heritage railway before taking on the top job at The Tank Museum in January 2024, says he plans to encourage more schools to visit and wants to employ more staff at the tourist attraction, which now draws about a quarter of a million visitors a year.

From steam railways to tanks – museum director Chris Price has a deep love of heritage vehicles
Planning for centenary of WWII
While Chris, who has moved to Swanage, is happy to be living where he can hear the whistle from the locomotives in his back garden again and, when off duty, still be close to the world of steam railways, his primary focus is now on tanks and caterpillar tracks.
And there’s plenty to keep the staff of the internationally renowned museum busy in 2025, with a new exhibition planned on the Ukraine war, the 80th anniversary of VE Day in May, and plans to sort out the museum’s huge archives.
As well as The Tank Museum’s annual TankFest and Tiger Tank days, the management team is also having to plan ahead for the centenary of World War Two events, beginning in September 2039, to make sure that all the relevant exhibits are in perfect condition.

The Tank Museum staff in their ecommerce workshop which is rapidly getting too small especially in the run up to Christmas
Online sales are booming
But there’s a more pressing problem to deal with first – the museum staff who are now responsible for sending out more than 30,000 parcels a year from the online shop are outgrowing their workshop.
And as online sales become more and more important to the museum – there were record sales over the Black Friday weekend in November 2024, which raised £140,000 for the charity – the ecommerce centre will have to become a fulfilment centre in the near future.
Chris was quick to praise former director Richard Smith for getting the attraction on such a solid financial footing, and accepts that having to operate as a mini Amazon is a nice problem to have, and one that can help fund his vision for the museum’s future.

Tank slippers have been one of the museum’s best selling lines in the runup to Christmas

From bars of chocolate to beer, just about everything in the museum shop is branded with tanks
One million subscribers on YouTube
Chris Price said:
“Online sales now account for a third of our income now, it’s a real growth area. We are the biggest museum online, we have a bigger online presence than the British Museum and we are also on the world stage.
“We have just got one million subscribers on YouTube and a large chunk of our social media activities are very, very well engaged.
“We have a young team delivering that and they deliver exceptionally well. Our ecommerce, our tank slippers, our limited edition Christmas jumpers and a whole range of products branded especially for the Tank Museum, are flying off the shelves and we have had a very busy Christmas.
“But that online success also leads to real world growth and our visitor numbers have increased from 130,000 to a record 220,000 visitors over the last eight years to 2023.
“We know that people fly into the UK to visit The Tank Museum, stay in Dorset and visit other county attractions like Swanage Railway – I’m not sure how much we contribute to the Dorset economy, but it will be many millions.”

The Tank Museum has some 300 military machines from 26 countries – the largest collection anywhere in the world
“Ability to recruit is limited”
Chris added:
“Running a business is becoming increasingly hard work. As a charity you are having to work harder and harder for every pound, and feel that more and more pounds are being taken off you.
“There’s a shortage of staff and the government is increasing our costs as an employer, which has probably raised our wage bill by £90,000 this year and that’s just for the nine months from April.
“Sadly in Dorset we have a problem with recruitment, housing is too expensive here, so a charity’s ability to recruit is limited because of that ratio between wages and property price.
“It’s quite scary, a higher proportion of wages get spent on housing here than in central London. We cannot pay London salaries, but we are not far off having London property prices.”

Interactive displays, like A Winter Wartime which tells the tale of Christmas in the trenches, are fascinating youngsters
Engaging the young generation
Chris’s former role at the North Yorkshire Moors heritage railway means he’s brought with him a wealth of experience in the charitable heritage sector.
He also knows the importance of education in museums – and while 6,000 schoolchildren from nearly half of all the schools in Dorset are engaged with The Tank Museum, a major aim for the future is to reach out to the other half.
With a current recruitment problem in the military, engaging the young generation, and letting them know why the UK has a military and what it does is seen as a way forward – but he says a light touch is needed.
It is one reason that the museum invited visiting children to write 300 Christmas cards that were sent to veterans, thanking them for helping to keep the country safe.
New exhibitions for the coming years will feature a lot of interactive elements, and be based around STEM education – science, technology, engineering and maths – as well as trying to emphasise human stories and bring the story of tanks and the military right up to the present day.

The Tank Museum will tell the story of the liberation of Europe for the 80th anniversary of VE Day in May 2025

A recreation of a town street from World War Two has created a lot of interest
“It is a big Dorset story”
Chris Price said:
“I came here and discovered a terribly successful business – which gives me huge opportunities as an incoming director as I have the luxury of being able to make changes without too many fears about financial impact.
“That success has allowed us to refocus back on our charitable objectives and then look at ways to use that success to further the aims of the charity.
“By association you end up with a better museum because by concentrating on why you are here in the first place you will inevitably get better.
“We are the military museum of the Royal Tank Regiment and the Royal Armoured Corps and we want to educate people about that by being a very good tourist attraction.
“We are looking to the future on what The Tank Museum needs to continue moving forward and our association with the tank regiment and the Royal Armoured Corps are key to that. It is a big Dorset story and we need to be associated with that.”

Not just the tale of the tanks, but of the people who served in them, that’s the museum’s aim
“Lots of human stories to tell”
Chris added:
“We are going to spend more money than we have in the past, we will increase the number of staff in the museum area so we are better at collection care.
“We will integrate education and interactive play into new exhibitions so that children are engaged with the subject matter.
“We are The Tank Museum and it will always be Ronseal to some extent, doing what it says on the tin, but we have also put up a lot more content that concentrates on people.
“Our mission is to tell both the story of tanks and the people who serve in them, so there are lots of human stories to tell and that’s what gives the museum a broad appeal.
“One of the big issues is that we are a museum of war instruments and we have to be aware of the fact that there’s a serious side to tanks.
“They were first invented to save servicemen’s lives. Vast numbers of people were being killed in the trenches in World War One and the tank was invented to stop that, to break the stalemate.”

A display on the role of tanks in popular culture has helped to make the museum more attractive to young visitors

The museum now hopes to tell a more contemporary story, of tanks and army personnel in the 21st century
Fantastic team is a huge asset
Chris said:
“Our Ukraine exhibition which will open in 2025 is predominantly a human story. We are telling the story of the British role in Ukraine, but also the humanitarian story that’s going on there as well.
“That’s why we did an exhibition on the role of the tanks in popular culture which talks about how they are portrayed in film, comics, toys and the news – these are important human tales to tell, the man standing in protest in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square is a story told in this museum.
“My first collections meeting involved the donation of a pair of knickers that a woman got married in, because they were made from the silk of a German parachute that her husband had found, so that’s going into the collections now as an exhibit.
“I think the biggest thing that I have taken from my first year is the fantastic team we have here. We have a great group of staff and volunteers who are a huge asset to us – I have never been anywhere else where there is quite the level of love for the work they do.”
Further information
- More about upcoming exhibitions and the Christmas holiday opening hours at The Tank Museum are on its website