Six students were admitted. Lectures, demonstrations, seminars and tutorials were arranged through the Michaelmas and Hilary Terms and for four weeks in Trinity. On average there were four sessions per week, usually lasting for two hours, and in addition there were visits to museums in Oxford, London, Cambridge and the Netherlands. The examination comprised three written papers taken in June and a dissertation to be submitted in September. While there were some guest lectures, the course represents a very large increase in the work undertaken by the staff of the museum. It had been decided that the Museum ought to be involved in the teaching offered by the University, and its outstanding resources can now contribute to the general understanding of the history of science and to the future shape of the discipline.
The Museum was awarded a grant of £1.2m by the Heritage Lottery Fund towards the total anticipated cost of the development project of £1.5m. This represented the maximum grant possible under the rules governing the Fund. At a late stage in the assessment process, the Museum was permitted to include the refurbishment of its existing galleries in the project and this too was given the maximum support. Already included in the plan were a new special exhibition gallery, library, store, education room, workshop, studio and office, as well as the refurbishment of the basement gallery. Through the Surveyor's Office, the Museum was also successful in its application for planning permission and listed building consent related to the development project.
The Museum was given Full Registration status by the Museums and Galleries Commission. Towards the end of the year, this recognition was surpassed when the Commission announced that the Museum had been `designated' as one of only twenty-six non-national museums in the country containing `an outstanding collection'.
A closed-circuit television system has been installed in the Museum for security purposes. Further developments have taken place in the Museum's new store in Manor Road, with the installation of extensive further racking and the movement of material from other stores. Work continued steadily on the computerised inventory of the collection.
Work has begun on the collaborative project with the British Museum, the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden, and the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence, funded by Directorate-General X of the European Commission. The outcome will be a shared public database of instruments up to 1600. Meetings organised by the Museum have been held in Florence and Leiden to regulate the documentation work and the photography, which has been continuing in the individual museums.
The OSIRIS group of museums (the Mus<Theta> e des Arts et M<Theta> tiers, the Museum Boerhaave, the Museo di Storia della Scienza and the Museum of the History of Science) met in Leiden to further their collaborative ventures.
With the assistance of a grant from the South Eastern Museums Service, restoration work was completed on a terrestrial globe by John Senex. Records of some of the Museum's older books, created by the Early Printed Books Project, were added to the new version of OLIS, giving the Museum library better (though still very small) representation there.
Professor John Heilbron was appointed a Senior Research Associate of the Museum. Dr Beryl Hartley continued her regular volunteer work on the collections. Ms Lynn Norman resigned as Technician and Photographer and Mr Giles Hudson was appointed to a full-time position of Curatorial Assistant.
Visitor numbers rose again in 1996--7 to 35,744. (The equivalent figure for 1995--6 was 31,601, and for 1994--5, 16,639.)
The accumulated deficit had been eliminated by the end of the year.
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In January a new exhibition, `The Noble Dane: Images of Tycho Brahe' opened. Its centrepiece was the newly restored painting by Eduard Ender of Tycho Brahe at the court of Rudolph II in Prague, but from there it went on to deal with the many different ways in which Tycho's image has been used. The exhibition was accompanied by an extensive article in Sphaera.
An on-line virtual version of the exhibition `The Noble Dane: Images of Tycho Brahe' was written by the Keeper, with a contribution by the Assistant Keeper, and designed by the Curatorial Assistant. This has become a permanent feature of the Museum's Web site.
The exhibition `Cameras: the Technology of Photographic Imaging' opened on 20 May. It included many of the highlights of the Museum's collection of cameras and associated apparatus, together with a range of early photographs. A leaflet was published to accompany the exhibition.
An on-line virtual version of the exhibition `Cameras: the Technology of Photographic Imaging' was prepared by the Senior Assistant Keeper, with the help of the Librarian, and designed by the Curatorial Assistant. It has been added to the set of exhibitions offered on the Museum's Web site.
One of the students on the M.Sc. course, Jonathan Sills, wrote and designed an on-line exhibition entitled `George Graham and Bill Gates: a Study in Architectural Dominance'.
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A one-day workshop on `The Art of Engraving', in collaboration with the Scientific Instrument Society, was held in the Museum on Saturday, 16 November. The programme included a talk by the Librarian. The staff of the Map Room in the Bodleian contributed to the workshop programme.
The Senior Assistant Keeper organised the Museum's contribution to the Science Week (SET 97) sponsored by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, presenting a hands-on lecture demonstration on `Developing Image: Early Chemistry in Photography' on 15 March. He also gave a public lecture for Museum's Education Week: `From Marconi to Public Broadcasting', on 5 October. In May the Museum organised a competition for Museums Week 1997. The Senior Assistant Keeper prepared a museum guide for foreign language students.
A `Winter Soirée' was held for the Friends on 1 November. The annual party was held as usual on Ashmole's birthday, 23 May. The Museum hosted the Oxfordshire Museums Council's Christmas party on 11 December.
The Professor of Poetry, James Fenton, devoted the Creweian Oration at Encaenia, 25 June, in the Sheldonian Theatre, to praising the donation to the Museum from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
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The Keeper, Senior Assistant Keeper and Assistant Keeper contributed courses to the M.Sc. in Economic and Social History, for which the Keeper was an examiner.
The Assistant Keeper contributed to the early-modern science paper organised by Mr Scott Mandelbrote. He also supervised an undergraduate project in mathematics.
In collaboration with Mr Mandelbrote, the Keeper organised a series of eight seminars in Hilary term on `Magic, Science and Religion in Early Modern Europe'. They were held in All Souls College.
In collaboration with the Maison Fran<tau> aise, the Museum organised a one-day meeting on 13 March on `Science and Instrumentation: Franco-British themes since 1800'.
The Museum jointly sponsored the Delta Lecture, given at the Whipple Museum, Cambridge, by Dr David Edgerton.
For the second year, the Museum sponsored a seminar series on `Collection and Comparison in the Sciences'. It was organised by Dr Richard Drayton and the Keeper. There were five sessions, held in the Museum in Trinity Term.
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Francis Maddison, `On the Origin of the Mariner's Astrolabe', Sphaera, Occasional Papers, no. 2 (1997)
Exhibition leaflet: Cameras: the Technology of Photographic Imaging, by W.D. Hackmann.
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camera by Bencini, presented by John Gamlen;
collection of lamps and photographic items, presented by G.L'E. Turner;
large collection of microscopes and accessories, presented by the School of Biological Sciences, Manchester University;
microscope by Cooke, Troughton & Simms, presented by the Metrology Division, National Physical Laboratory;
microscope by Andrew Ross, a presentation instrument to Arthur Aikin, purchased with the assistance of a grant from the PRISM Fund;
a Dudgeon's pattern and a Pachon's pattern sphygmograph by Boulitte, presented by Mr Sykes;
ivory diptych sundial incorporating a printed map of England and Wales, c.1600, purchased with the assistance of grants from the PRISM Fund and the Renaissance Trust;
Cowley automatic level, presented by A. Hyder; advertisement for a public camera obscura at Southport, purchased; trade token issued by Thomas Williams, Oxford, c.1655, depicting a pair of spectacles;
potentiometer by Cambridge Scientific Instrument Co. Ltd, transferred from the Department of Engineering Science;
card scale rules and slide rule, presented by P.R. Turner;
chemical laboratory apparatus, transferred from the Department of Earth Sciences;
microscope and microscope accessories, presented by the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry;
microscope by W. Watson & Sons Ltd., presented by S. Holt;
set of Napier's rods, presented by H. Wynter;
Otis King cylindrical slide rule, presented by A.S. Pemberton.
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Mr J. R. Millburn gave an important printed syllabus by Benjamin Martin entitled `A Course of Six Lectures In the Newtonian Experimental Philosophy' (Bath, c.1748), of which no other example is recorded.
Other gifts to the library were made by J.A. Bennett, D.J. Bryden, J. Bullock, A. Chapman, M. Danell, O. Davies, E. Dekker, M. Dorikens, C. Frémontier, W.D. Hackmann, T.G. Halsall, A.J. Hamber, J.L. Heilbron, D. Hitchins, A. Humphries, N.C. Keer, D. King, H.P. Kraus, Liverpool Astronomical Society, A. Meskens, A.D. Morrison-Low, A.Q. Morton, G. Richet, S.R. Sarma, A.J. Turner, G.L'E. Turner, R.M. Twist, D.S. Weaver, T.H. Wilson.
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Items of chemical glassware were loaned for an exhibition at Broadfield House Glass Museum.
A protractor by George Adams was loaned to the William Chambers exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery.
An engraving of the Museum building by Michael Burghers was loaned to the exhibition `Tous les savoirs du monde' at the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris.
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Dr Bennett gave the following lectures and seminars:
4 August 1996: Commentator for the scientific instruments session, SHOT Annual Conference, London.
1 October: `The Museum and the Web', Museum's Association Annual Conference, Harrogate.
20 September: `Practical Geometry and Operative Knowledge', Brandeis/Harvard Conference on New Perspectives on the Scientific Revolution, Boston.
13 November: `Christopher Wren: a Mechanical Hand, a Philosophical Mind', public lecture at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
26 November: `The Great Telescope of 1900', Stratford Astronomical Society.
6 December: `Tools of Empire from British Instrument Workshops of the Nineteenth Century', Commonwealth History Seminar, Oxford.
15--16 December: invited contributor to the `Instruments and Travel' workshop, Max Plank Institut, Berlin.
26 February: `Practical Geometry and Operative Knowledge', All Souls College, Oxford.
13 March 1997: `La Grande Lunette: the Spectacle of Astronomy in 1900', Maison Fran<tau> aise, Oxford.
18 March: `Mathematical Instruments in the History of Science', Centre Koyré, Paris.
19 March: `Le Musée d'Histoire des Sciences, Oxford', Musée du Louvre, Paris.
21 March: `Christopher Wren's Greshamite History of Geometry and Astronomy', Birkbeck College, London.
10 April: `Virtue, Innocence and Mammon: moral themes in instrument history', European University Institute, Florence.
18 April: `The Status of Scientific Instruments', Ministry of Science and Technology, Lisbon.
30 May: `Wren', Chichele Lecture, All Souls College.
21 July: `Cataloguing a Collection: Problems and Solutions', Scientific Instrument Commission, International Union for History and Philosophy of Science, Liège.
The following publications by Dr Bennett appeared during the year:
`Science Museums as Resources for Historians', in A. Guagnini, ed., I Laboratori dell'Università: un Incontro Bologna--Oxford (Bologna, 1996), pp. 75--84.
`Scientific Instruments', in J. Turner, ed., The Dictionary of Art (London, 1996), vol. 28, pp. 208--12.
`Museums and the Establishment of the History of Science at Oxford and Cambridge', British Journal for the History of Science, 30 (1997), pp. 29--46.
`The Instrument Trade in Britain', essay review in Annals of Science, 54 (1997), pp. 197--206.
`Science and Social Policy in Ireland in the Mid-Nineteenth Century', in P. Bowler and N. Whyte, Science and Society in Ireland (Belfast, 1997), pp. 37--47.
`Instruments, Astronomical', in J. Lankford, ed., History of Astronomy: an Encyclopedia (New York, 1997), pp. 269--76.
`The Noble Dane: Images of Tycho Brahe', in Sphaera, no. 5 (1997).
`The Noble Dane: Images of Tycho Brahe', on-line exhibition, with Stephen Johnston, designed by Giles Hudson.
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Dr Hackmann gave the following lectures and seminars:
8 April 1997: `Scientific Instruments in Seventeenth Century Art', Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Oxford.
5 July 1997: `T.E. Lawrence and the History of Photography', Jesus College, Oxford.
10 July 1997: `The History and use of the Camera Lucida', St Catherine's College, Oxford.
The following publications by Dr Hackmann appeared during the year:
`T.E. Lawrence and his Cameras', Sphaera, no. 5 (1997); this was reprinted by the Lawrence Society in their Newsletter.
`Cameras: the Technology of Photographic Imaging', on-line exhibition with Tony Simcock and Giles Hudson.
Dr Johnston gave the following lectures and seminars:
14 September: `Paper Plans and Wooden Ships: Mathematics and Shipbuilding in sixteenth and Early seventeenth-England', British Society for the History of Mathematics, Cambridge.
5 November: `Practice as Persuasion: Promoting the Mathematical Arts in Elizabethan England', Research seminar at the Office for History of Science, Uppsala University.
6 November: `Ship Design and the Master Shipwright', Lecture at Vasa Museum, Stockholm.
13 March: `Making the Arithmometer Count', Maison Française, Oxford.
10 April: `Intellectual Virtues and Calculating Machines', European University Institute, Florence.
The following publications by Dr Johnston appeared during the year:
`The identity of the mathematical practitioner in 16th-century England' in Irmgard Hantsche (ed.), Der `mathematicus': Zur Entwicklung und Bedeutung einer neuen Berufsgruppe in der Zeit Gerhard Mercators, Duisburger Mercator-Studien, volume 4 (Bochum, 1996).
`Making the arithmometer count', Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 52 (1997), 12--21.
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