RT Journal Article
T1 Jim Bennett (1947–2023): life as a museum practitioner
A1 Stephen Johnston
YR 2024
VO 
IS Spring 2024
K1 Biography
K1 curatorship
K1 history of mathematics
K1 history of science
K1 museum practice
AB 
NO The obituary in the Guardian prompted letters from two correspondents with further memories: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/jan/02/warm-memories-of-jim-bennett-whose-work-on-christopher-wren-inspired-many (accessed 18 March 2024). Online notices included an immediate announcement from the History of Science Museum in Oxford (https://www.hsm.ox.ac.uk/celebrating-life-professor-jim-bennett; accessed 18 March 2024), as well as a more substantial reflection by Joshua Nall centred on the Whipple Museum (https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/news-events/jim-bennett; accessed 18 March 2024). Dmitri Levitin’s blog for Oxford Intellectual History bracketed Jim Bennett with John Heilbron in a double obituary: https://intellectualhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/article/jim-bennett-and-john-heilbron-as-historians-of-science-and-intellectual-historians (accessed 28 February 2024). Journal obituaries include Anderson 2023 and Roos 2024. 
NO Unpublished audio recording of an interview by Daniel Belteki, 2019; passage at 31 min 14 sec, lightly edited from my transcript. The interview was part of a Sackler Fellowship project on the history of the Observatory’s Meridian Building from the 1960s onwards (Belteki, 2020). 
NO Belteki interview, 2019, at 38 min 17 sec
NO These are still available online in their early html format, starting with The Measurers (1995): https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/measurer/text/title.htm (accessed 18 March 2024). 
NO Epact: https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/ (accessed 18 March 2024). Jim’s early appreciation of the power of the digital realm did not blind him to the continuing virtues of print. The last work that he saw all the way through to publication was his catalogue of the surveying instruments of the Museo Galileo (Bennett, 2022). He worked on this for many years after the Epact project, intermittently and as occasion permitted. It was both a relief and a real source of pleasure that it did see the light.
NO Steampunk (2009): https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/steampunk/ (accessed 18 March 2024) and ‘Eccentricity: Unexpected Objects and Irregular Behaviour’ (2011): https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/eccentricity/ (accessed 18 March 2024)
NO ‘The Renaissance in Astronomy: Books, Globes and Instruments of the 16th Century’ (2012): https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/the-renaissance-in-astronomy/ (accessed 18 March 2024)
PB The Science Museum Group
SN 2054-5770
LA eng
DO 10.15180/242105
UL https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/jim-bennett-1947-2023-life-as-a-museum-practitioner/
WT Science Museum Group Journal
OL 30