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'½ vol. not relevant': The scrapbook of Winifred Penn-Gaskell
Ephemera in collections of science and technology museums are often understudied and even less frequently displayed. This paper argues for a re-evaluation of the scrapbook of Winifred Penn-Gaskell as a key item in her collection of aeronautica.
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Coming home - Bally’s miniature phrenological specimens
Close inspection of William Bally’s miniature phrenological specimens – a set of 60 small plaster busts – has led to a reappraisal of their origin and use. Made in 1832, they helped position Bally as ‘one of the best practical phrenologists in England’.
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Curating the collider: using place to engage museum visitors with particle physics
This article explores the use of reconstructed spaces and immersion at the Science Museum’s recent 'Collider' exhibition. It sets out the challenges of engaging museum audiences with cutting-edge particle physics, describes the techniques adopted and evaluates their success.
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Oramics to electronica: investigating lay understandings of the history of technology through a participatory project
In this article we go behind the scenes in the production of the Science Museum’s Oramics to Electronica: Revealing Histories of Electronic Music exhibition (2011–) to examine its genesis and reflect upon its implications.
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Pilgrimages to the museums of the new age: appropriating European industrial museums in New York City (1927–1937)
This article analyses the changing perceptions of European industrial museums as expressed in the reports written by the curators, directors and trustees of the New York Museum of Science and Industry between 1927 and 1937.
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Rather unspectacular: design choices in National Health Service glasses
This article discusses the provision of spectacles under the NHS scheme in Britain from 1946-86. It reveals there was no explicit consideration of consumer choice or fashion and argues that this limited design across the British optical industry.
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Review of Ships, Clocks & Stars: The Quest for Longitude
A review of the 'Ships, clocks and stars: the quest for longitude' exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.
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Review: The Return of Curiosity
Review of 'The Return of Curiosity', by Nicholas Thomas
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The Hugh Davies Collection: live electronic music and self-built electro-acoustic musical instruments, 1967–1975
The author describes and contextualises the Hugh Davies Collection (HDC) – a collection of self-built electro-acoustic musical instruments and other electronic sound apparatus formerly owned by the English experimental musician, instrument inventor, and live electronic music pioneer Hugh Davies (1943–2005).
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Threading through history: the vertical transmission of Davy, Faraday and Tyndall’s lecture demonstration practices
How can physical actions of performance be passed on through generations? This article highlights possible routes of transmission from lecture-demonstrations of nineteenth-century scientists at the Royal Institution to Science Museum Guide Lecturers in the 1950s, on to the performance practices of contemporary Explainers.