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An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A wax modeller born in 1761, an exhibition on Baker Street and galleries on Marylebone Road offer several ways into the story of Madame Tussauds London.
On this page
Marie Tussaud
Born Marie Grosholtz in Strasbourg in 1761, Marie Tussaud learned wax modelling from Philippe Curtius and made her first figure, of Voltaire, in 1777.
She first showed her work in London in 1802, at the Lyceum Theatre, and toured Great Britain and Ireland with the collection before settling it in the capital.
Baker Street and the Chamber of Horrors
The exhibition settled on Baker Street in 1835. By 1843 Marie Tussaud was advertising its Chamber of Horrors, which became one of its best-known rooms.
She died in London in 1850, and the family carried the exhibition on.
A home on Marylebone Road
Her grandson Joseph Randall commissioned the building on Marylebone Road, whose galleries opened in 1884. The London Planetarium, with its green dome, opened next door in 1958 and became part of Madame Tussauds in 2006.
This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
