2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence and the emergence of the United States of America.
Discover the story of the American Revolution from a British point of view and how Britain understood, governed, and eventually relinquished its American colonies. The exhibition explores key political events and conflicts of the Revolution and their impact on everyone from rebels, British Loyalists to Indigenous nations, enslaved people and Black Loyalists.
The tour is open to all British Sign Language users. Our BSL guide, John Wilson, will be delivering a BSL tour at 15:00 on Friday 21 August 2026 and 10:00 on Saturday 22 August 2026.
About the tour guide:
John Wilson was born deaf. He is a freelance consultant working in the field of Deaf Arts and British Sign Language, with a wide range of experience as a deaf arts practitioner, a theatre and television actor, a creative signer, and a director of numerous productions ranging from devised performances to BSL translations of Shakespeare. His work as a sign poet and performer has been well received, and John has been part of several projects both in the UK and internationally to promote creative sign through the medium of BSL.
John works with a long list of major museums and galleries across the UK, including the Tate Galleries, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, National Maritime Museum, and the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace. He leads BSL tours at London Zoo and is an accredited BSL guide at Hampton Court Palace and Highgate Cemetery. From 2017 to 2020 he was curator of a programme of BSL tours at the Royal Academy of Arts – the first profoundly deaf person to hold such a role. Likewise in 2020 he was the first profoundly deaf person appointed as External Examiner by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. John has also previously been a Trustee of the British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust which makes films and TV for the Deaf community in BSL.
