Museum of the History of Science, Oxford
Encyclopedia
The Museum of the History of Science, located in Broad Street
, Oxford
, is home to an unrivalled collection of scientific instruments from medieval times to the 17th century. Its collection of 18th and 19th-century instruments is also substantial. It is the world's oldest surviving purpose-built museum
building.
to the early 20th century, representing almost all aspects of the history of science
and is used for both academic study and enjoyment by the visiting public.
The museum contains a wide range of scientific instruments, such as quadrant
s, astrolabe
s (the most complete collection in the world with c.170 instruments), sundial
s, early mathematical instrument
s (used for calculating, astronomy
, navigation
, surveying
and drawing), optical instruments (microscope
s, telescope
s and camera
s), equipment associated with chemistry, natural philosophy and medicine, and a reference library
regarding the history of scientific instruments that includes manuscript
s, incunabula
, prints and printed ephemera
, and early photographic
items.
Built in 1683 to house Elias Ashmole
's collection, the museum building became known as the Old Ashmolean Building (to distinguish it from the newer Ashmolean Museum
building where the Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology moved in 1894) and was the world's first purpose-built museum building; it was also open to the public. The original concept of the museum was to institutionalize the new learning
about nature that appeared in the 17th century and experiments concerning philosophy
were undertaken in a chemical laboratory
in the basement, while lectures and demonstration took place in the School of Natural History, on the middle floor. Ashmole's collection was expanded to include a broad range of activities associated with the history of natural knowledge and in 1924 the gift of Lewis Evans
' collection allowed the museum further improvement, becoming the Museum of the History of Science and appointing Robert Gunther
as its first curator.
The collection and the building itself now occupies a special position in the study of the history of science and in the development of western culture and collecting.
One of the most iconic objects in the collection is a blackboard that Albert Einstein
used on 16 May 1931 during his lectures while visiting Oxford
, rescued by E. J. Bowen
at the end of the lecture.
From October 2009 through February 2010, the Museum hosted the first major exhibition of Steampunk
art objects, curated by Art Donovan and presented by Dr. Jim Bennett
, museum director.
Admission is free and is open to the general public from noon until 5 p.m., Tuesday to Friday, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Saturdays, and from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. on Sundays.
(The museum closes for the Christmas
and New Year
period.)
Broad Street, Oxford
Broad Street is a wide street in central Oxford, England, located just north of the old city wall.The street is known for its bookshops, including the original Blackwell's bookshop at number 50, located here due to the University...
, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, is home to an unrivalled collection of scientific instruments from medieval times to the 17th century. Its collection of 18th and 19th-century instruments is also substantial. It is the world's oldest surviving purpose-built museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
building.
Overview
The current collection contains around 18,000 objects from antiquityClassical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
to the early 20th century, representing almost all aspects of the history of science
History of science
The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....
and is used for both academic study and enjoyment by the visiting public.
The museum contains a wide range of scientific instruments, such as quadrant
Quadrant (instrument)
A quadrant is an instrument that is used to measure angles up to 90°. It was originally proposed by Ptolemy as a better kind of astrolabe. Several different variations of the instrument were later produced by medieval Muslim astronomers.-Types of quadrants:...
s, astrolabe
Astrolabe
An astrolabe is an elaborate inclinometer, historically used by astronomers, navigators, and astrologers. Its many uses include locating and predicting the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, determining local time given local latitude and longitude, surveying, triangulation, and to...
s (the most complete collection in the world with c.170 instruments), sundial
Sundial
A sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun. In common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from its style onto a surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. The style is the time-telling edge of the gnomon, often a thin rod or a...
s, early mathematical instrument
Mathematical instrument
A mathematical instrument is a tool or device used in the study or practice of mathematics.Most instruments are used within the field of geometry, including the ruler, dividers, protractor, set square, compass, ellipsograph and opisometer...
s (used for calculating, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, navigation
Celestial navigation
Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is a position fixing technique that has evolved over several thousand years to help sailors cross oceans without having to rely on estimated calculations, or dead reckoning, to know their position...
, surveying
Surveying
See Also: Public Land Survey SystemSurveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them...
and drawing), optical instruments (microscope
Microscope
A microscope is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the naked eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy...
s, telescope
Telescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
s and camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
s), equipment associated with chemistry, natural philosophy and medicine, and a reference library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
regarding the history of scientific instruments that includes manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
s, incunabula
Incunabulum
Incunable, or sometimes incunabulum is a book, pamphlet, or broadside, that was printed — not handwritten — before the year 1501 in Europe...
, prints and printed ephemera
Ephemera
Ephemera are transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera are advertising trade cards, airsickness bags, bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters,...
, and early photographic
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
items.
Built in 1683 to house Elias Ashmole
Elias Ashmole
Elias Ashmole was a celebrated English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer and student of alchemy. Ashmole supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he was rewarded with several lucrative offices.Ashmole was an antiquary with a...
's collection, the museum building became known as the Old Ashmolean Building (to distinguish it from the newer Ashmolean Museum
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...
building where the Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology moved in 1894) and was the world's first purpose-built museum building; it was also open to the public. The original concept of the museum was to institutionalize the new learning
New Learning
In the history of ideas the New Learning in Europe is a term for Renaissance humanism, developed in the later fifteenth century. Newly retrieved classical texts sparked philological study of a refined and classical Latin style in prose and poetry....
about nature that appeared in the 17th century and experiments concerning philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
were undertaken in a chemical laboratory
Laboratory
A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...
in the basement, while lectures and demonstration took place in the School of Natural History, on the middle floor. Ashmole's collection was expanded to include a broad range of activities associated with the history of natural knowledge and in 1924 the gift of Lewis Evans
Lewis Evans (collector)
Lewis Evans was an English businessman and scientific instrument collector.Lewis Evans was the son of Sir John Evans, an archaeologist, and younger brother of the more famous archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans who excavated Knossos in Crete. He studied chemistry at University College London and...
' collection allowed the museum further improvement, becoming the Museum of the History of Science and appointing Robert Gunther
Robert Gunther
Robert Theodore Gunther was a historian of science, zoologist, and founder of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford....
as its first curator.
The collection and the building itself now occupies a special position in the study of the history of science and in the development of western culture and collecting.
One of the most iconic objects in the collection is a blackboard that Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
used on 16 May 1931 during his lectures while visiting Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, rescued by E. J. Bowen
E. J. Bowen
Edmund John Bowen FRS was a British chemist. Born in Worcester, E. J. Bowen attended the Royal Grammar School Worcester. He won the Brackenbury Scholarship in 1915 and 1916 to Oxford University where he studied chemistry...
at the end of the lecture.
From October 2009 through February 2010, the Museum hosted the first major exhibition of Steampunk
Steampunk
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...
art objects, curated by Art Donovan and presented by Dr. Jim Bennett
Jim Bennett (historian)
James Arthur Bennett PhD is a museum curator and historian of science.Jim Bennett is Director of the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford University. he was appointed on 1 October 1994, on the retirement of the previous director, Francis Maddison. He is also a member of the Faculty of...
, museum director.
Admission is free and is open to the general public from noon until 5 p.m., Tuesday to Friday, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Saturdays, and from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. on Sundays.
(The museum closes for the Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
and New Year
New Year
The New Year is the day that marks the time of the beginning of a new calendar year, and is the day on which the year count of the specific calendar used is incremented. For many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner....
period.)
Curators
The following have been Curator/Secretary to the Committee or director at the museum:- R. T. Gunther (1924–40)
- F. Sherwood TaylorF. Sherwood TaylorDr Frank Sherwood Taylor, PhD was a British historian of science, museum curator, and chemist who was Director of the Science Museum in London, England....
(1940–45, temporary; 1945–50) - C. H. Josten (1950–64; 1964–94, emeritus)
- F. R. Maddison (1964–94)
- J. A. Bennett (1994–present)
See also
- Jim BennettJim Bennett (historian)James Arthur Bennett PhD is a museum curator and historian of science.Jim Bennett is Director of the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford University. he was appointed on 1 October 1994, on the retirement of the previous director, Francis Maddison. He is also a member of the Faculty of...
, the museum's Keeper - Oxford University Scientific SocietyOxford University Scientific SocietyThe Oxford University Scientific Society is a student scientific society at the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1882 as the Oxford University Junior Scientific Club. It is one of the oldest undergraduate science societies in the world. It organizes talks on scientific subjects on a weekly...
- Whipple Museum of the History of ScienceWhipple Museum of the History of ScienceThe Whipple Museum of the History of Science holds an extensive collection of scientific instruments, apparatus, models, pictures, prints, photographs, books and other material related to the history of science. It was founded in 1944, when Robert Whipple presented his collection of scientific...
, the equivalent institution at the University of CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...