To Gazette No. 4518 (1 July 1999)
Site investigations, preparatory to building work, began on 14 April. The Museum was closed to the public from 1 July.
The Museum's main store was extended, new shelving and other necessary equipment installed, and material transferred there from the other stores. This represented a great deal of work, but it has solved the Museum's major storage problems for the time being, and so removed the final condition attached to full registration by the Museums and Galleries Commission.
The `Epact' project, co-ordinated by the Museum and funded by the European Commission, continued its work on a joint computer database of instruments before 1600. The other partners in the project are the Museo di Storia della Scienza, Florence, the Museum Boerhaave, Leiden, and the British Museum, London. Two meetings of all the partners were arranged, and held in London and in Oxford (25 to 27 June), while cataloguing, photography and design work continued in Oxford. A former student from the M.Sc. course in the Museum, Ilaria Meliconi, has played a significant part in cataloguing instruments in three of the museums contributing to Epact. The completed database of pictures and text is expected to be made available to the public in September 1998.
The Museum initiated a proposal for an international on-line register of scientific instruments. This would hold information on individual objects submitted by the holding institutions, and could be interrogated via the internet. The project was enthusiastically received by a meeting of the Scientific Instrument Commission of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science in July, a website for the register has been established, and a pilot version is running there as the scheme is developed.
The `OSIRIS' group of museums, comprising museums of science in Florence, Leiden, Paris and Oxford, held two meetings to plan their joint projects, in Paris and in Oxford (25 May). The other museums in the group decided to support and to join the Oxford proposal for an international on-line register of instruments.
Further measures were taken to improve the physical security of the collection. As a result of improvements on this front, the Museum is once again eligible for grants from central government agencies, such as the PRISM Fund of the Museums and Galleries Commission.
A new exhibition, `Fire and Art: Electrical Practice in the Eighteenth Century', was organised by Paola Bertucci, a D.Phil. student who had recently completed the M.Sc. course at the Museum. Ms Bertucci arranged a series of public talks in the exhibition, which ran from 13 November to 14 February.
Running concurrently with the exhibition `Fire and Art', was a smaller one on the `Epact' project relating to instruments before 1600.
The Museum joined with the Bodleian Library to mount an exhibition in the public gallery at Bodley, entitled `The Garden, the Ark, the Tower, the Temple: Biblical Metaphors of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe'. It ran from 2 February to 2 May. Mr Scott Mandelbrote of All Souls College and the Keeper selected the exhibits – mostly books, but also some loaned objects – and wrote the catalogue, which was designed at the Museum by the Curatorial Assistant and published jointly by the Museum and the Bodleian. The Museum also organised a series of public lectures linked to the exhibition.
The Museum joined the Maison Française d'Oxford in sponsoring the mounting in Oxford of the exhibition `Un Monde Fractal', from 9 February to 28 February. It also hosted a reception for the British Society for the History of Mathematics in the exhibition.
The students on the Museum's M.Sc. course, as part of their course, organised and mounted an exhibition at the Museum from 10 March to 27 June. The title was `Lines of Faith: Instruments and Religious Practice in Islam'. All the work was undertaken by the students, with only marginal help and some oversight from the Museum staff. The outcomes included a web-version of the exhibition and an article in Sphaera. The students also organised and delivered a series of public talks in the exhibition.
Having viewed the Museum's web-site on his visit on 20 October, in a speech at the Museums and Galleries Commission on 11 November, Mr Fisher cited the Museum's policy of mounting permanent on-line versions of its temporary exhibitions and making these available via the internet, as an example that should be emulated elsewhere.
The Keeper attended the `Reception for the Arts' given by the Queen on 29 May at Windsor Castle.
The Senior Assistant Keeper was given the title of `Reader in the History of Science'.
The Museum accepted responsibility for hosting the websites of the Scientific Instrument Commission and the Scientific Instrument Society.
The Museum was the subject of a feature story and cover illustration in Oxford Today.
The Museum offered guided tours of `the seventeenth-century museum' to groups of visitors in a special Sunday opening for `Heritage Day' on 20 September. Tutors from language schools were introduced to the Museum on 21 October, and an education pack prepared for them by the Senior Assistant Keeper. On 26 November members of the Friends' Organisation were taken on a tour of the original buildings of the Radcliffe Observatory. On 28 December the Museum organised a `refresher' visit for the Oxford Guild of Guides. For Museums Week, 16-24 May, the Museum organised a competition based on the geography of European instrument making. On 23 May, Elias Ashmole's birthday was celebrated by a party with a rock-and-roll band in the basement cleared of instruments and cases.
Two Delta Lectures, sponsored jointly by the Museum, the Whipple Museum and the South Kensington Institute for the History of Technology, took place during the year. The first, held in London on 19 November, was given by Dr Otto Sibum of the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. On 22 May, in Oxford, Professor John North of the University of Groningen, gave a lecture on `The Ambassadors' Secret: a new study of Holbein's painting'. For the latter lecture, an all-ticket event where the tickets were free, the basement was packed with some 120 people.
Public lectures linked to the special exhibition, `The Garden, the Ark, the Tower, the Temple: Biblical Metaphors of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe', were held on the four Thursday evenings in February, and were very well attended. The lectures were given alternately by Scott Mandelbrote and the Keeper.
The Librarian completed the retrospective accessions register (bringing up to date the primary handwritten record of the museum's acquisitions, 1969--97), to replace a loose-leaf system which had proved unsatisfactory and to conform to MGC registration requirements.
A Senex terrestrial globe was conserved with the assistance of a grant from the South Eastern Museums Service.
A number of volunteers worked in the Museum for different periods throughout the year: Felicity Clark, Marie Creswell, Beryl Hartley and Bethan Rigby.
The first year of the M.Sc. course at the Museum (History of Science: Instruments, Museums, Science, Technology) was completed and the vivas held in October. The final examiners' meeting recommended the award of the degree to five of the six students. Seven students were admitted to the 1997-98 course, and its international character was maintained by the new intake, with students from Denmark, France, Ireland, Norway, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. The course represents the main teaching effort of the Museum's staff, and the examiners were the Keeper (Chairman), the Senior Assistant Keeper, and the Assistant Keeper. The External Examiner was Dr A.G. Keller of the University of Leicester.
The Keeper and the Assistant Keeper contributed to the M.Sc. in Economic and Social History: the former with two sessions on `Galileo and the Historians', the latter by two on the history of technology. The Keeper was an Examiner for this degree.
The Keeper was supervisor for two D.Phil. students.
The Assistant Keeper contributed to teaching for the early-modern science paper organised by Mr Scott Mandelbrote.
The Keeper and the Assistant Keeper were involved with an initiative to introduce a new paper for first-year history undergraduates, `Gunpowder, Compass and Printing Press: Technology and Society in Early Modern Europe'.
The Museum joined with the Maison Française d'Oxford in organising a half-day symposium on 4 December under the title `What is the History of Scientific Instruments? Reflections on Maurice Daumas, Les Instruments scientifiques aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles'. The Keeper and Assistant Keeper contributed papers, while three speakers came from France for the occasion. The Museum was also associated with a one-day meeting at the Maison Française on 21 February, `Canguilhem–Foucault: Recasting the French Epistemological Tradition'.
The Keeper collaborated with three other members of the Modern History Faculty in organising a series of seminars, held in All Souls College in the Hilary Term, on the life and influence of Samuel Hartlib.
Dr Richard Drayton and the Keeper organised a series of seminars on `Collection and Comparison in the Sciences', held in the Museum in Trinity Term.
Jim Bennett and Scott Mandelbrote, The Garden, the Ark, the Tower, the Temple: Biblical Metaphors of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe (1998)
Sphaera, The Newsletter of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford. Issues no 6, Autumn 1997, and no. 7, Spring 1998.
Jim Bennett, `What is the History of Scientific Instruments? Reflections on Maurice Daumas, Les Instruments scientifiques aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Sphaera, Occasional Papers, no. 3 (1997)
Other notable acquisitions during the year were:
twenty lantern slides belonging to the late Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark and used in his human anatomy teaching in the Department of Human Anatomy, Oxford, 1920s--1950s, presented by Dr Savile Bradbury;
wooden quadrant and proportional scale, 19th century, purchased;
`Patholux' photographic microscope by Vickers Instruments Ltd, presented by P.M. Greaves;
group of photographs belonging to the late Mr A. P. Riza, mostly family portraits and snapshots, 1890s-1930s, bequeathed by Mr Riza to complement his previous donations;
astro-compass, c.1940, presented by R. Torode;
heliograph, presented by R. Torode;
racing pigeon timer by Gaston Simon, early twentieth century, purchased;
twenty-seven lantern slides for a lecture on perpetual motion belonging to the late mathematician C. A. Coulson, ?1950s, presented by Ms Wendy Spray;
ciné-camera by André Debrie, Paris, 1921, presented by G.R.K. Quelch;
aneroid barometer, presented by Jeremy Montagu;
two slide rules, presented by Jeremy Montagu;
eudiometer by J. Newman, early nineteenth century, presented by the Greater Manchester Museum of Science and Industry;
two ceramic penicillin culture vessels, presented by the Greater Manchester Museum of Science and Industry;
replica cross-staff, presented by Dr A. Chapman;
replica stone Islamic sundial, purchased;
Jules Richard stereo camera and viewer, purchased with the assistance of a grant from the PRISM Fund;
set of Russian matchboxes with illustrations of scientific and technical artefacts, presented by Dr V.P. Borissov;
three mechanical calculating machines, transferred from the University Offices;
engraved portrait of William Cullen, c.1790; presented by Mr Anthony Lummis.
A collection of archival material from the Dyson Perrins Laboratory, Oxford, mostly assembled by Sir Ewart Jones (Professor, 1955--78) and relating to the history of that laboratory (founded 1916) and other aspects of the history of chemistry, 19th century to 1970s; transferred from the Dyson Perrins Laboratory.
A small group of manuscript papers of H.E. Stapleton from his collaborator Professor Geoffrey Lewis, and Lewis's correspondence relating to their collaboration, 1900s to 1950s; presented by Professor Lewis.
A collection of manuscripts relating to the Dollond family of instrument makers: 2 items purchased, the rest (including existing Blundell Collection) presented by Mrs Mary Dollond Keates.
Twelve (odd) volumes of The Nautical Almanac..., 1767--1830, some with Radcliffe Observatory stamps or bookplates plus 2 volumes of Tables Requisite..., 1781 and n.d., one with Rigaud's signature.
Other gifts to the library were made by Mr John Bullock, Prof. Christoph Meinel, Prof. Gerard Turner, Dr Piero Todesco, Dr J. A. Bennett, Mr J. R. Millburn, Dr Allan Chapman, Mr A. J. Turner, M. Armand Beaulieu, Mr A. G. MacGregor, Mr D. Freiburger, Prof. R. Fox, Mr Ken Kalling, Dr S. Johnston, Prof. J. D. North, Dr D. J. Bryden, Dr C. Hammond, Dr M. Dorikens, Dr A. McConnell, Mr I. C. Symington, Dr A. A. Mills, Mme M. Bonhomme.
Five instruments were also lent to an exhibition at the British Museum, `Humphrey Cole: Mint, Measurement and Maps in Elizabethan England'. Each was signed by Cole and dated: a compendium of 1568, a folding rule of 1575, a horizontal sundial of 1579, a plane table alidade of 1582, and an altazimuth theodolite of 1586.
Seven instruments from the Museum were included in the exhibition `Scientific Instruments of the Sixteenth Century: the Spanish Court and the School of Louvain', held at the Fundación Carlos de Amberes in Madrid.
Two of the Museum's set of seventeenth-century Chinese prints of astronomical instruments at the Imperial Observatory, Beijing, were loaned to an exhibition at the Science Museum on the work of the PRISM Fund.
The photographic processing apparatus of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was lent to separate exhibitions at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales and the Museum of Oxford.
The following publications by Dr Bennett appeared during the year:
`History, Horology and Harrison', essay review in Antiquarian Horology, 23 (1997), pp. 451-6, with supplementary contributions at ibid., pp. 560--1 and ibid., 24 (1998), 79--81
`Malpighi and the Microscope', in D. Bertoloni Meli, ed., Marcello Malpighi: Anatomist and Physician (Florence, 1997), pp. 63–72
(with J. Bowen and I. Morrison), `Working the Web', Museums Journal, 97, part 2 (1997), 28–9
`The Career of John Flamsteed: Nobility, Morality and Public Utility', in F. Willmoth, ed., Flamsteed's Stars: New Perspectives on the Life and Work of the First Astronomer Royal (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 17–30
`Le Musée d'Histoire des Sciences d'Oxford', Musée des Arts et Métiers. La Revue, no. 21 (1997), 30–8
`What is the History of Scientific Instruments? Reflections on Maurice Daumas, Les Instruments Scientifiques aux XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles, Sphaera Occasional Paper, no. 3 (Oxford, 1997)
`Circumferentor', `Octant', `Plane table', `Quadrant', `Sextant', `Theodolite', in R. Bud and D.J. Warner, eds., Instruments of Science: an Historical Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998)
`Can Science Museums Take History Seriously?', reprinted in S. Macdonald, ed., The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 173–82
`Les Techniques du Grand Large', Les Cahiers de Science et Vie, no. 44 (1998), 20–5
(with Scott Mandelbrote) The Garden, the Ark, the Tower, the Temple: Biblical Metaphors of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Museum of the History of Science and Bodleian Library, 1998)
Dr Bennett gave the following lectures and seminars:
20 August, `Science and the Eighteenth-Century Gentleman', University of Virginia Course, Trinity College, Oxford
22 September, `Sixteenth-Century Geometry: the View from the Museum', Centre International de Rencontres Mathématiques, Luminy-Marseille
4 December, `What is the History of Scientific Instruments?', Maison Française, Oxford
5 December, `Surveying Instruments in Context: Ireland, America and Coal Mines', Commonwealth History Seminar, Oxford
20 January onwards, `Renaissance and Early-Modern Instruments', four lectures contributed to the V&A / RCA masters course on the History of Design and Decorative Art
22 January, `Sixteenth-Century Instruments', British Horological Institute, Cheltenham
2 April, `Representing the World in the Sixteenth Century: the Ambiguous Role of Mathematical Instruments', Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, Venice
22 April, `The Astronomical Career of John Flamsteed', Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge
23 July (with Mr Hudson) `A Proposal for an On-Line Register of Scientific Instruments', International Scientific Instrument Symposium, Soroe, Denmark
The following publications by Dr Hackmann appeared during the year:
Catalogue of the Pneumatic, Magnetic, Electrostatic, and Electromagnetic Instruments in the Museo di Storia della Scienza (Florence: Giunti, 1997)
`Electrometer', `Electroscope', `Electrostatic Machine', `Galvanometer', `Induction Coil', `Leyden Jar', `Sonar', `Thermopile', in R. Bud and D.J. Warner, eds., Instruments of Science: an Historical Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998)
Dr Hackmann gave the following lectures and seminars:
19 September, `Scientific Instruments in the Henry VIII Inventory', at the Henry VIII Inventory Workshop, Bristol
31 October, `Electricity and Model Experiments', Department of the History of Science, Bologna
13 November, `Joseph Priestly and Electricity: a lecture-demonstration', Scientific Instrument Society and the Lunar Society, Birmingham
25 November, `Science in Oxford in the Tudor and Stuart Period', Rewley House, Oxford
10 December, `Scientific Instruments at the Time of Henry VIII in His Inventories and in Paintings', Dilettante Society, London
25 March, `Visualisation in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Natural Philosophy', History of Science Department, University of Bath
10 July, `Making and Using a Camera Lucida for Landscape and Architectural Drawings: a lecture and demonstration', at the `Lawrence and Travels in Egypt Conference', Nuffield College, Oxford
Associate editor, Instruments of Science: an Historical Encyclopedia, eds. R. Bud and D.J. Warner (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998)
`Astrolabe, Mariner's', `Drawing instruments', and `Pantograph', in Bud and Warner (eds.), Instruments of Science
`Le Spectacle du calcul', Musée des Arts et Métiers. La Revue, 23 (1998), 23–32
Dr Johnston gave the following lectures and seminars:
22 October, `Competition as controversy: the machinery of calculation in 19th-century France', Science Museum, London
6 November, `Plats and plots: cartography and design at 16th-century Dover', Oxford Cartography Seminar, Bodleian Library
19 November, `Mathematics and material culture: artefacts and practice in 16th-century England', Division of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Leeds
4 December, `Curators, historians and instruments', Maison Française, Oxford
31 March, `Technologies of mathematics in 16th-century England', University of Bologna
7 April, `The geometry of war', Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Oxford
17 June, `Fantastic numbers: 19th-century visions of the present and future of machine calculation', British Society for the History of Science, Manchester
`Torquetum', in R. Bud and D.J. Warner, eds., Instruments of Science: an Historical Encyclopedia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998)
`A Planispheric Astrolabe by Regnerus Arsenius', Sphaera, no. 7 (1998), p. 7
Mr Hudson gave the following lecture:
23 July (with Dr Bennett), `A Proposal for an On-Line Register of Scientific Instruments', International Scientific Instrument Symposium, Soroe, Denmark