Peter Armstrong

With 20 years of experience in museum work in England, Peter Armstrong moved to Virginia in 2014 to manage the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. He led the transition from the Yorktown Victory Center—a small museum with some living history areas—to the new, $50-million, state-of-the-art American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, which opened in April 2017. In 2019 he oversaw a $10 million reimagining of the Jamestown galleries in time for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first recorded Africans, the first legislative government in the North America and the arrival of English women on mass to the Jamestown Colony. The latter resulting in the award-winning Tenacity: Women of Virginia exhibition.

Previously he was at the United Kingdom’s National Museum of Arms and Armour, also known as the Royal Armouries. He oversaw three museums, the most famous of which being the Tower of London. Armstrong developed and promoted several significant exhibitions during his tenure, including Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill in the Tower as part of the 500-year commemoration of Henry’s accession to the English throne.

Peter has lectured across the globe on the theme of museums as agents of social change. Over the last 2 years, as President of the Mystic Seaport Museum, he has worked to position the museum as a modern, relevant and diverse institution: a maritime museum that is not just a passive recipient of history but an active participant within it.

Peter lives with his wife Sue and their two rescued Labradors. Their three grown children reside in the United Kingdom.