Science Museum, Birmingham
Encyclopedia
Newhall Street
Newhall Street is a street located in Birmingham, England.Newhall Street stretches from Colmore Row in the city centre by St Phillip's Cathedral in a north-westerly direction towards the Jewellery Quarter. Originally the road was the driveway to New Hall occupied by the Colmore family...
in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Standing opposite the Birmingham Assay Office
Birmingham Assay Office
The Birmingham Assay Office is one of the four remaining assay offices in the United Kingdom.The development of a silver industry in 18th century Birmingham was hampered by the legal requirement that items of solid silver be assayed, and the nearest Assay Offices were in Chester and London...
the original 19th century Silver Electroplating factory of George Elkington
George Elkington
George Richards Elkington was a manufacturer from Birmingham, England. He patented the first commercial electroplating process.Elkington was born in Birmingham, the son of a spectacle manufacturer...
, built in 1838, once occupied a much longer and grandiose building on Newhall Street which was largely demolished in the mid 1960s. The works had many workshops and warehouses along and over the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal
Birmingham and Fazeley Canal
The Birmingham and Fazeley Canal is a canal of the Birmingham Canal Navigations in the West Midlands of England. Its purpose was to provide a link between the Coventry Canal and Birmingham and thereby connect Birmingham to London via the Oxford Canal....
and the now filled-in Whitmore's Arm (or Miss Colmore's Arm) canal, which ran through the site. In the early 1850s there was a steam-powered electric generator with 64 permanent magnets arranged in a circle and a rotating wrought iron
Wrought iron
thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...
armature
Armature (electrical engineering)
In electrical engineering, an armature generally refers to one of the two principal electrical components of an electromechanical machine–generally in a motor or generator, but it may also mean the pole piece of a permanent magnet or electromagnet, or the moving iron part of a solenoid or relay....
. The electroplating
Electroplating
Electroplating is a plating process in which metal ions in a solution are moved by an electric field to coat an electrode. The process uses electrical current to reduce cations of a desired material from a solution and coat a conductive object with a thin layer of the material, such as a metal...
process involved solutions of cyanide of silver and potassium cyanide
Potassium cyanide
Potassium cyanide is an inorganic compound with the formula KCN. This colorless crystalline compound, similar in appearance to sugar, is highly soluble in water. Most KCN is used in gold mining, organic synthesis, and electroplating. Smaller applications include jewelry for chemical gilding and...
.
It became the science museum of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England.Entrance to the Museum and Art Gallery is free, but some major exhibitions in the Gas Hall incur an entrance fee...
in 1951 until its closure in 1997. Many exhibits were then moved to Thinktank
Thinktank, Birmingham
Thinktank is a science museum in Birmingham, England. Opened in 2001, it succeeded and has several exhibits from the City's Museum of Science and Industry. It is part of the Millennium Point complex.-Building:...
which later opened as an entrance-fee-based exhibition in Millennium Point in Eastside
Eastside, Birmingham
Eastside is a district of Birmingham City Centre, England currently undergoing a major redevelopment project. The overall cost when completed is expected to be £6–8 billion over a period of ten years which will result in the creation of 12,000 jobs. 8,000 jobs are expected to be created during the...
, in September 2001. Among the famous exhibits to move in the relocation was the 1797 Smethwick
Smethwick
Smethwick is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands of England. It is situated on the edge of the city of Birmingham, within the historic boundaries of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire....
Engine, produced by famous local industrialist James Watt
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...
. It had originally been located in the town of Smethwick
Smethwick
Smethwick is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands of England. It is situated on the edge of the city of Birmingham, within the historic boundaries of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire....
, before being relocated to the Birmingham Canal Navigation Workshops (actually some 10 miles away from the city in Tipton
Tipton
Tipton is a town in the Sandwell borough of the West Midlands, England, with a population of around 47,000. Tipton is located about halfway between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. It is a part of the West Midlands conurbation and is a part of the Black Country....
) in 1897. However, it came to the museum in 1959 on the closure of the workshops.
The old museum building is currently vacant.
It carries two blue plaque
Blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person or event, serving as a historical marker....
s on its wall, one to George Elkington, and another to his employee Alexander Parkes
Alexander Parkes
Alexander Parkes was a metallurgist and inventor from Birmingham, England. He created Parkesine, the first man-made plastic.-Biography:...
who is credited with inventing the first plastic.
Future development
Birmingham City Council
The Birmingham City Council is the body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local authority in the United Kingdom with, following a reorganisation of boundaries in June 2004, 120 Birmingham...
put up the site, which runs along Newhall Street and Charlotte Street, and adjoins the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal
Birmingham and Fazeley Canal
The Birmingham and Fazeley Canal is a canal of the Birmingham Canal Navigations in the West Midlands of England. Its purpose was to provide a link between the Coventry Canal and Birmingham and thereby connect Birmingham to London via the Oxford Canal....
, for long lease and redevelopment. The development was awarded to St Bernard's Property in 2002.
Planning permission was granted in 2006 for the Jewellery Box - a mixed use leisure, commercial and residential development with 234 apartments.
The grade II listed ornate terracotta
Architectural terracotta
Terracotta, in its unglazed form, became fashionable as an architectural ceramic construction material in England in the 1860s, and in the United States in the 1870s. It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings.It had been used before this in...
Queens Arms pub adjoins the site http://www.queensarmsbar.co.uk . The site is within the Jewellery Quarter
Jewellery Quarter
The Jewellery Quarter is an area of Birmingham City Centre, England, situated in the south of the Hockley area. It is covered by the Ladywood district. There is a population of around 3,000 people in a area....
Conservation Area
Conservation area
A conservation areas is a tract of land that has been awarded protected status in order to ensure that natural features, cultural heritage or biota are safeguarded...
.
Birmingham is now the only industrial city within the United Kingdom not to have an industrial museum.
Sources
- The Birmingham Jewellery Quarter - An Architectural Survey of the Manufactories, John Cattell, Sheila Ely, Barry Jones, English Heritage, 2002, ISBN 1-873592-48-5
- Birmingham City Council on the former Science Museum
- BCC Redevelopment Brief 2002, PDF 983Kb