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The origins of The Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Museum date back to the aftermath of the First World War. 

In 1917, before even the First World War had ended, the British Government decided that a National War Museum should be set up to collect and display material relating to the Great War. The interest taken by the Dominion governments led to the museum being given the title of the Imperial War Museum. Established by Act of Parliament, the museum was opened in the Crystal Palace by King George V on 9 June 1920.

The creation of the Imperial War Museum was the catalyst for many regiments in the British Army to start accumulating their own collections of war artefacts and archival material. The King’s Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC) and The Rifle Brigade (RB) both did so during the 1920s. It is these collections which now form a substantial part of the material on display in the Museum today.

For many years the KRRC and RB collections were housed wherever space could be found for them in the buildings at The Rifle Depot, Winchester. It was not, though, until after the rebuild of Peninsula Barracks in 1964 that a semi-permanent home for the collections was established on the first floor of the Depot headquarters building, the building now occupied by the Museum.

  The KRRC and RB museums in 1970s

In 1986 the opportunity arose, with the closure of Peninsula Barracks as a training depot, for the Museum to occupy the former Depot headquarters building on a permanent basis. The Ministry of Defence approved and in 1989 the KRRC and RB collections were united in a single museum – The Royal Green Jackets Museum – occupying one half of the ground floor and the whole of the first floor of the building. The Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, the other former regiment of The Royal Green Jackets, also contributed by lending a significant part of its collection, housed in Oxford, for display in the Museum.

On 1 December 1989 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Colonel-in-Chief of The Royal Green Jackets, opened the new Museum.

Since 1989 there have been a number of changes within the Museum, including the introduction of new displays and exhibits. However, the basic layout and space available have not changed.

In 2004 The Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry transferred ownership of its collection in Winchester to the RGJ Museum. In 2007 it transferred ownership of the remainder of its collection in Oxfordshire to the Museum. The RGJ Museum, therefore, now owns the museum collections, including the archives, of all the former regiments of The Royal Green Jackets. The Oxfordshire collection, however, remains in Oxfordshire available to the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum Trust for use and display within the County.