The Fusilier Museum

The Fusilier Museum sits within the walls of the Tower of London, housed in a building originally constructed in eighteen forty-five as officers quarters. The regiment itself dates back to sixteen eighty-five, when King James the Second established it specifically to guard the Tower of London and its precious Royal Armoury. They were called fusiliers because they were armed with a special light musket known as a fusil, which used a flintlock mechanism rather than a slow-burning fuse, a crucial innovation for soldiers working in close proximity to massive barrels of gunpowder.