Scientific Instrument Curators in Britain: Building a Discipline with Material Culture

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Alberti, S J M M (2018) Scientific instrument curators in Britain: building a discipline with material culture. Journal of the History of Collections (fhy027). ISSN 1477-8564

https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhy027

Deposited on: 09 December 2019

NMS Repository – Research publications by staff of the National Museums Scotland

http://repository.nms.ac.uk/ Journal of the History of Collections vol. 31 no. 3 (2019) pp. 519–530 Scientific instrument curators in Britain

Building a discipline with material culture Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019

Samuel J.M.M. Alberti

From the mid-1960s a new breed of scientific instrument curators emerged in the United Kingdom. This small community of practice developed in parallel to but distinctly from the expanding generation of university historians of science and other cognate museum sub-professions. Presenting the trajectories, experiences and practices of personnel in British scientific instrument collections, especially the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, this article explores how networks of interest around collections shaped the museum sector in later twentieth-century Britain. With particular objects – especially eighteenth-century instruments – the ‘brass brigade’ built a discipline.

On 3 September 1968, sixty curators and other The museum professionals present at the ‘Aspects’ historians gathered at the Royal Scottish Museum meeting formed part of a distinct cohort emerging at in Edinburgh to discuss ‘Aspects of Eighteenth- this time. My aim in this paper is to understand the Century Astronomy’. Papers were delivered by development of this professional community from a ‘Dr. M. A. Hoskin, University of Cambridge; museum perspective. Other authors in this special issue Dr A. J. Meadows, University of Leicester; D. J. illuminate science collections by revealing their prov- Bryden, Royal Scottish Museum; Dr. E. G. Forbes, enance (for example, Richard Dunn) or by exploring University of Edinburgh; Lt. Cdr. H. D. Howse, their original discipline of use (Karin Tybjerg and National Maritime Museum; and G. L’E. Turner, Alison Boyle); here I want to show the importance of Museum of the History of Science, Oxford.’1 The the communities who cared for them once they were meeting was organized by David Bryden, who was in museum collections. History of science in UK two years into his first job, and indeed many of those museums, it transpires, developed in parallel with its present were at the beginning of their career, in new equivalent in universities, as well as with important posts or newly in-post. but overlooked connections with industrial archaeolo- This youthful energy was focused on the historic gists, collectors and dealers. telescopes in the special exhibition that catalyzed I will trace the roots of this group of science cura- the meeting. Scientific instruments were front-and- tors – by which I mean historic instrument curators, for centre; we might assume that they always had been reasons I will discuss – back to the early 1960s, which and always would be. But the happy admixture at this marked the beginning of expansion in both muse- meeting belied a complex and changing network of ums and universities in Britain. This will be my geo- interests around material culture that spanned muse- graphic focus, although it will widen as the networks ums, universities and beyond. Bryden, Turner and they formed extended internationally in the early Howse crafted different professional identities to 1980s. I begin by outlining the institutions, collec- those of their friends Hoskin, Meadows and Forbes. tions and personnel involved in this small but prolific Professional communities in museums, this paper community, before expanding my focus to relevant will show, are peculiar. They have their training, pub- museological, intellectual and organizational contexts. lications and networks; and most of all, a particular I then consider the relationship between curatorial relationship with the things in their care. They build practices – exhibiting, publishing and collecting – and disciplines with material culture. the construction of expertise.

Like museologist Helen Wilkinson, I want to the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company. By understand how the practices of informal groups and this time the National Maritime Museum had been networks of interest around collections shaped the established in Greenwich and opened to the public 2 museum sector in later twentieth-century Britain. in 1937. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 For science curators, I argue that the 1960s and 1970s For science collections, as for others, however, much were a hinge point in the making of collective identi- of what shapes museum collections and communities ties. This was partly a response to the lack of object happens beyond their geneses, founding figures, and use by (other) historians of science – even including early years. The 1960s in particular saw a step-change those present at the ‘Aspects of Astronomy’ meeting. in practices and personnel; they marked the arrival of What, then, were the distinct approaches and out- a close-knit group of specialized curators who would looks of this new generation of curators – and how did set the intellectual path of these institutions as much they use historic scientific instruments to develop a as (if not more than) those who founded them. professional identity? For the first two curators in question, curating was a second career, and they brought with them the zeal of the converted. After distinguished service in Curators the Second World War and Korean War, Lieutenant- In the 1960s there were five main collections of scien- Commander H. Derek Howse joined the National tific instruments in the UK: the Science Museum in Maritime Museum in 1963 as Assistant Keeper under London; the National Maritime Museum in nearby David (‘Willie’) Waters, another naval commander Greenwich; the university collections in Oxford turned historian.4 The museum was in the process and Cambridge; and the only one outside southern of absorbing the old Royal Observatory and its tele- England, that of the Royal Scottish Museum (rsm) in scopes (the astronomers having escaped to the clearer Edinburgh.3 Although all will feature in what follows, skies of Sussex). Howse worked to restore and display the latter will play a disproportionately large role; astronomical instruments in the newly-vacated obser- partly because it has not had such sustained historical vatory. With no formal university education, he would attention as the others, and partly because the trajec- go on to be a prolific historian of navigational and tories and networks of the personnel there connected astronomical instruments: as one colleague observed, them to these other sites. he and Waters ‘gave weight’ to instrument curation.5 These collections had been institutionalized in Within months of Howse’s appointment, after a the first half of the century. With roots in the 1850s brief career in crystallography and a spell studying Industrial Museum of Scotland, the rsm Technology history of science, microscope enthusiast Gerard Department had been established in 1901, when a new L’Estrange Turner took up a similar post at the ‘Science Gallery’ opened. Soon afterwards in London Museum of the History of Science in Oxford.6 The the Science Museum became an entity separate from following year his colleague, linguist and archaeolo- the South Kensington Museum in 1909, its collection gist Francis Maddison, was promoted from Assistant of instruments crystallized around the 1876 Loan Curator to succeed C. H. Josten as Curator. Turner did Collection and the contents of the Patent Museum. not see eye-to-eye with his new boss, who operated for In Oxford, zoologist and historian Robert T. Gunther the most part in an overlapping but different network arranged a display of historic apparatus in the Bodleian to that mentioned here.7 Turner therefore turned his Library in 1919, then facilitated Lewis Evans’s dona- attention outwards, into external networks and pub- tion of early instruments to the University. This was lishing, especially around the history of microscopy. the core of the museum opened in the Old Ashmolean He produced over 100 papers by the time he retired building in 1925, curated by Gunther; it was formal- thirty years later, and played a leading role in several ized as the Museum of the History of Science in 1935. organizations, as we shall see below. In Cambridge too, following Gunther’s survey of sur- Turner’s early teaching at Oxford had a significant viving historic instruments across the university, a impact on one post-graduate student in particular: temporary display in 1936 was followed by a major David Bryden, who went on to take up the second of donation in 1944 that formed the core of a history of two assistant keeperships filled in rapid succession at science museum – from Robert Whipple, director of the rsm in 1966, after aviation engineer Don Storer.8

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Within Bryden’s vague remit were historic instru- Cavendish Laboratory from central Cambridge to ments, including glassware used by the renowned expand the museum in its wake. chemist Joseph Black.9 But it felt to him that he was Bryden would later move on to the library of the the first historian of science at thersm : the library Science Museum, where history of science was Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 did not have a history of science classification, and increasingly encouraged after the War and which was the instruments had been overshadowed by indus- in the throes of expansion. The new chemistry gal- trial technology. Visitors associated the technical ele- lery that opened in 1964, for example, was explicitly ments of the museum (which also included decorative historical, and David Follett, director since 1960, arts and natural history) with push-button working encouraged publication.14 Frank Greenaway, driving machines rather than antique pieces. force behind the new gallery and Keeper of Chemistry Under the laissez-faire leadership of former elec- from 1967, was an active historian of science.15 trical engineer Alistair Gosman Thomson, the two Meanwhile in Edinburgh, two new assistant keep- new assistant keepers set about shaping the collection ers started work at the rsm in the same week in 1970 to in a museum that was still redisplaying galleries closed tackle the scientific collections. Allen D.C. Simpson, for the Second World War. (They would each in due who had just started a Ph.D. in the history of astron- course succeed Thomson as Keeper.) Transport col- omy at the nearby university with Eric Forbes, took lections dominated Storer’s attention in the way that horology, astronomy, rocketry, and generally more scientific instruments did for Bryden, who considered recent material; while the historic natural philosophy the collection to have ‘just growed like Topsy and have and chemistry were assigned to an Oxford D.Phil. never really been properly looked at’.10 Effectively the graduate who had been experimenting at the Atomic collections were carved up between the staff in the Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Robert department and new assistant keepers were given a G. W. Anderson.16 Their training reflected a more relatively free rein to select their own activities and general move towards doctorates, historical and sci- interests. While general museum training was available entific, among science curators. Alistair Thomson at at this time, a standard mode of inducting new cura- the rsm had written a thesis on paper-making while tors in national museums was to leave them in their in post, and a number of Science Museum keepers collections to find their own way towards specialist worked towards Ph.D.s (especially when the retire- collections expertise.11 In an institution large enough ment of the director was imminent). Frank Greenaway to have multiple curators, in this way they became was awarded his in 1971, for example, and considered intensely associated with and knowledgeable about post-graduate qualification ‘a very good way of going particular objects. For Bryden in his early career, this up the scale’; and that the ‘dignity of being addressed was astronomical equipment and especially telescopes as Dr Greenaway in the museum did a good deal for and their makers. Encouraged by Turner, he focused my standing there’.17 on the Scottish optician James Short (1710–1768) – Anderson left Edinburgh to work in the Science and so organized the aforementioned symposium – ‘a Museum chemistry department in 1975, where completely new Museum venture’.12 Greenaway encouraged his historical scholarship; In 1970, however, Bryden left Edinburgh to take they introduced this into the 1977 chemistry re-dis- up the curatorship of the Whipple Museum in the plays.18 In Edinburgh Anderson was replaced by Alan History and Philosophy of Science Department at Q. Morton, who was working on a Ph.D. on the history the University of Cambridge. Previously the head of twentieth-century physics and who swiftly followed of department had been curator in name, supported the path south to the Science Museum (see Alison by a part-time assistant curator. This post had been Boyle’s paper in this issue).19 After a gap, this post held by prominent historians of science Rupert Hall – now with formal responsibility for physics, chem- and Derek de Solla Price early in their careers; by istry and photography – was filled in 1980 by Alison Alex Keller (who had taught Bryden at Leicester); Morrison-Low, recently graduated from the Leicester and by Lady Rosemary Fitzgerald.13 As the first full- Museum Studies masters programme, where she had time, trained curator, Bryden seized the opportunity taken the science and technology course. History of in the mid-1970s presented by the departure of the science was now firmly embedded in the organization.

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Contexts the mooted centre materialized as an academic unit In contrast to the situation experienced by Turner without collections; and even in his history of astronomy, Forbes did not himself make use of the collec- and Howse when they embarked upon their curatorial 25 careers, by the time Morrison-Low joined the sector tions. In their extensive three-volume history of the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 Greenwich Observatory, he and Jack Meadows left the she found a thriving network around science collec- instruments to Derek Howse.26 Furthermore, growth tions.20 To understand the shift over fifteen years, we of history of science in Edinburgh was stymied by need to understand not only the personnel develop- the gravity of the renowned Science Studies Unit, ment I have just outlined, but also the professional and the sociologists of science in the Unit were avow- and organizational contexts for this development. edly non-material in their focus. For example, David First however, it pays to address an important fac- Bryden was friendly with a leading member, John tor in the intellectual environment: the expansion in Law, but their intellectual interests were ‘miles away’, university-based history and philosophy of science and there were no other interactions between ssu and (hps). The inter-war period had seen the emergence the museum.27 of hps in the UK, associated in its early decades with More generally, attitudes to instruments within programmes in London, Oxford and Cambridge. the history of science community were uneven, and As British universities expanded significantly in the it becomes rapidly clear to the historiographer of sci- 1960s, liberal studies of science were well suited to the 21 ence that the 1968 ‘Aspects’ meeting was the excep- political climate. New departments were established tion rather than the rule. Anna-K. Mayer has shown at the new University of Sussex (1963), Imperial that Charles Singer, doyen of the British discipline, College in London (also 1963, where the first chair had little interest in material culture and already in was held by Rupert Hall), and umist in Manchester the foundational inter-war years ‘that the academic (1964 – Frank Greenaway lost out to Donald Cardwell and the museum sides of science history pulled for the chair). Leeds hps expanded its staff, and new apart’.28 In the 1960s, despite his experience with posts were established for example in Bradford (Jack the Whipple collection, Rupert Hall considered his- Morrell, 1964), Durham (David Knight, 1964), tory of science to be an intellectual study rather than Lancaster (Robert Fox 1966 and John Hedley Brooke ‘action’ history.29 In Oxbridge the museums may well 1969) and Leicester (Jack Meadows joined Bill have been catalysts for the teaching programmes, but Brock in 1965). Scotland punched above its weight, there was little use of the collections. This was par- with posts in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Strathclyde and ticularly the case in Cambridge, where the collection Edinburgh. was considered ‘a very small sideline of the subject’.30 Eric G. Forbes took up the Edinburgh post in Keller found the collection he helped to curate to 1965, within the University of Edinburgh History be of ‘secondary importance’; although Jim Bennett Department, and worked there until his untimely would later manage the Whipple he was exposed to death in 1984.22 While researching and teaching it neither as a Cambridge undergraduate nor a post- astronomy, he had become interested in its history graduate in this period; and when Bryden arrived, it and had taken a part-time history of science M.Sc. was used by ‘nobody’.31 In Oxford, Turner found the at University College London. He went on to build ‘proper study’ of instruments ‘neglected’; so too Allen an international reputation in eighteenth-century Simpson found in the 1970s ‘there wasn’t any great German and British astronomy. interest in artefacts’ in the universities.32 How, then, did this fresh batch of appointments Nowhere is this clearer than at the 1977 engage with and impact on museums? Forbes, for International Congress of the History of Science, example, was well-placed intellectually and physically organized by Forbes in Edinburgh. As he knew well, to exploit the rsm collections, and indeed, curators the rsm next door held one of the largest and finest there did some teaching for him, using instruments.23 relevant collections in the UK; and yet it did not fea- Forbes went on to supervise Simpson’s doctorate, and ture.33 The Scottish Office of the British Government taught Morrison-Low; he and Simpson even hatched hosted a reception at the museum, but there was no a scheme for a collaborative history of medicine cen- mention of the instruments so close to the delegates. tre, complete with museum.24 In the end, however, In over 300 presentations, including an entire panel

522 SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT CURATORS IN BRITAIN on sources for historians of science, material culture at the Science Museum under the auspices of the was the explicit focus of only three papers.34 Robert Museums Association in December 1966, ‘Museums Anderson had gate-crashed some sessions, and he of Science and Technology: Problems of Technique 40 would observe with good reason at a later meeting and Management’. The hallmarks of the emerg- Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 (with Forbes in the audience): ing sub-profession are evident: the dominance of the collections of scientific artefacts are, if not unused, certainly Science Museum; a fixation with problems in general heavily underused. It is true that professional historians of and of size in particular; a grumbling about the lack science are few in number and their discipline is a relatively of use of collections by university historians; and the recent one, but any brief survey of the journals published in ubiquitous Frank Greenaway and Gerard Turner. their field will reveal very few references, let alone specialist papers, to the very tools by which science has advanced.35 The topics of the meeting also reveal the importance of the new field of industrial archaeology to science Anderson later reflected his perception that university museums in the UK. Only coined in 1955, this (sub-) colleagues ‘did not necessarily think you were doing a discipline arose from the expansion in heritage focus particularly important job [in museums], even though 36 to include vestiges of the industrial revolution as they were in more or less the same field’. British industry experienced (or at least perceived) a Nevertheless, there was vibrant activity around post-war decline. The Industrial Archaeology Society scientific instruments and other collections in the held its inaugural meeting in the Science Museum in museum in the 1960s and 1970s. If not university- December 1968.41 based history of science, then, what were the drivers New museums and new posts within existing insti- in the development of science curating in the 1960s? tutions were established across former industrial areas, To answer, we need to expand our focus from univer- many of them in industrial sites as Scandinavian- sities to museums, which were experiencing their own inspired ideas of folk museums.42 A working party seismic changes in the UK. in County Durham formed in 1966 gave rise to During the 1960s, the museum sector finally recov- Beamish, the North of England Open Air Museum, ered from the privations of war and began thirty years of unheralded growth. Larger museums began to sep- in 1970; the Nottingham Industrial Museum opened arate their different functions: exhibitions, design and in 1971, based around a collection gathered by a group conservation developed their own practices, standards of engineers in 1964. In Manchester the umist history 37 of science and technology group was more interested and groups. The rsm appointed Hector Fernandez as in-house designer in 1965, for example, and the in local industry than pure science; they were instru- Science Museum centralized the Museum Services mental in setting up the North Western Museum of Department in 1967 under Margaret Weston, the first Science and Industry (now the Museum of Science and female keeper (and later director).38 These were distinct Industry, part of Science Museums Group). Perhaps from curators, who had previously undertaken many most famously, the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust of these functions. Curatorial roles decreased as a pro- was established in Shropshire 1967. Industrial herit- portion of the museum workforce, but still increased age was at the core of the massive expansion of the overall and remained the single largest professional ‘heritage industry’ during the 1970s, when one or two group. The division of labour allowed curators to museums per month opened in the UK.43 focus more on specific expertise, as evidenced during Like the Science Museum, the rsm encompassed the 1970s by a range of specialist groups, devoted for large-scale industrial and engineering preservation.44 example to geology (1974); folk life (1974 – reframed Thomson took an active interest, and his depart- as social history in 1982); archaeology (1975); costume ment was involved in the fledgling Scottish Society (1975); ethnography (1978); and in 1980 the Group for Industrial Archaeology, led by John Hume at the for Scientific, Technological and Medical Collections University of Strathclyde; and contributed to art his- (later the Science and Industry Curators Group) affil- torian Basil Skinner’s extramural course on the sub- iated to the Museums Association, chaired in its early ject at the University of Edinburgh.45 The prominence years by Robert Anderson.39 of industrial heritage was such that director Norman This group had its roots much earlier; they can be Tebble proposed a branch museum for industry, discerned for example in a special meeting organized although it was never realized.46

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For the fledgling scientific instrument community, Undeterred, women in the area like Alison Morrison- the prominence of industrial heritage was important Low, Anita McConnell and Jane Insley formed their in raising the profile of ‘science-and-industry’ as a own groupings, for example taking an annual study 51 heritage category, and bringing economic and social trip together. Another expert, Molly Freeman, also Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 factors into public displays alongside technical nar- bucked the gendered trend. Trading in London as ratives. In London and Edinburgh, curators were Harriet Wynter Antiques, she had specialized in sci- involved in both. But exchange and dialogue around entific instruments since the mid-1960s.52 instruments in particular were also channelled by Freeman represents another crucial demographic distinct, wider, networks. For formal institutions like of this community of practice – an admixture that museums and university departments are not the only involved not only curators and (other) scholars but way communities develop expertise and distinct disci- also those with personal and commercial interests. plinary identities. For example, Bryden found that in his early years as a There may not (yet) have been a specialist society curator he was as often seeking advice from London’s for science curators as there were for their colleagues in dealers as from its Science Museum. ‘The trade is an other disciplines within the UK, but let us look wider. La integral part of museum life’, he recalled, ‘and you Commission des Instruments Scientifiques (sic) was estab- can’t afford to be sniffy about it’.53 Turner, son of an lished as part of the International Union of History of auctioneer, worked closely with auction houses, not Science in 1952, and in its early years focused on gener- only advising but also writing handbooks.54 Simpson ating a worldwide inventory of instruments.47 Derek de too remembers dealers at conferences, ‘not only to but- Solla Price and Francis Maddison were involved, and ter people up but also to protect their valued custom- British presence later increased, especially once sym- ers’.55 Dealers included Anthony J. Turner, formerly posia were staged after the organization was re-vivified of the National Maritime Museum, who collabo- in 1977 in the wake of the markedly instrument-free rated with Wynter.56 Although relationships between world congress in Edinburgh. Anderson, Turner and museums and dealers were sometimes uneasy, dealers Morrison-Low all attended the first formal symposium generated scholarship and curators would point col- in Bucharest in 1981. Turner was later secretary and leagues in their direction and vice versa.57 both Howse and Anderson presidents. Despite some misgivings about including the In the UK, the British National Committee for the ‘trade’, such dealers and collectors were central to a History of Science, Medicine and Technology formed meeting at the Science Museum on 20 April 1983 dur- in 1960; it would count Francis Maddison, Frank ing which the Scientific Instrument Society (sis) was Greenaway and Margaret Weston among its members. established. In the chair was Turner, of course, and It initially focused on teaching but prompted in 1967 Carole Stott of the National Maritime Museum was by sic – during Maddison’s presidency – the commit- secretary; soon it boasted over 100 ‘collectors, cura- tee initiated an inventory of scientific instruments (its tors, dealers, restorers and other interested parties’.58 long gestation is discussed below).48 Less formally, University-based historians of science were a small the British Society for the History of Science, run for minority. many years from the Science Museum, was reasonably effective as a meeting ground with other scholars.49 Bryden and Turner attended and presented early in their careers. Frank Sherwood Taylor had been presi- Practices dent while he was director of the Science Museum; In seeking to discern how curators formed a commu- Willie Waters also held the presidency, followed later nity of practice, this, then, was the community. But by both Turner and Anderson. what of the practices of instrument curators? How More significant perhaps for scientific instruments did they (and others) use scientific instruments? Too in particular was the Equinoctial Club established often the history of museums is focused on product in 1978. It was convened by Turner, who ‘ordained rather than process; but exploring what curators did, an unchanging menu of brown Windsor soup, and and how this changed, helps us to understand the steak and kidney pudding and Welsh rarebit’; and, nature of these professions, institutions and collec- more problematically, that it should be men-only.50 tions. A comprehensive account would be rather too

524 SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT CURATORS IN BRITAIN long, but here, with a continued focus on Edinburgh, (1972) and a 1978 monograph on the Playfair collection I will touch on how museum activities – exhibition, of historic chemical glassware.64 Cheap and printed in publication, acquisition and research – contributed large runs, exchanged with libraries and other museums, 65 to the construction of expertise. As we have seen for these catalogues acted as ambassadors of the collection. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 institutions and networks, instrument curators over- ‘To study involves publication,’ pronounced Turner; ‘[t] lapped and interacted with other historians of science here can only be exchange of information and develop- to some extent, but other groups and communities ment of ideas when results of work on collections are featured just as much in their day-to-day work. published.’66 Other members of the instrument cohort The facets of museum work that attract the most agreed. ‘We reckoned that publishing the collections attention are of course exhibitions. The Science was absolutely key’, reflected Simpson, ‘to get them in Museum was unusual in the level of activity in the the literature – preferably good refereed literature – and 1960s, as the new block gradually opened and the people would beat a path to your door (not perhaps in Standing Commission for Museums and Galleries large numbers)’.67 For science curators, like their peers prompted travelling exhibitions.59 By contrast, the in other fields, catalogues were intellectual currency. ‘If rsm Technology Department had few opportuni- you do an exhibition you must do a catalogue’, reflected ties for new displays, rather maintaining the aging Bryden: ‘What’s the point, otherwise? Because the exhi- permanent galleries. Special exhibitions included bition is essentially ephemeral – the catalogue stands. in July 1968 a bicentenary exhibition of thirty-one But I couldn’t persuade them to do one with footnotes.’68 James Short telescopes, the catalyst for the ‘Aspects The new curators clearly felt the urge for academic of Eighteenth-Century Astronomy’ meeting. Of these apparatus in these publications as a mark of intellectual only six were rsm’s; the other loans were a testament credibility. This was satisfied more by another charac- to the developing instrument networks (including teristic output of the new instrument curators of this six from Turner in Oxford).60 Allen Simpson was period: their prolific journal contributions. Academic first involved in the museum as a student volunteer periodical outputs were not strictly part of their job on this project; later, he and Anderson staged exhibi- descriptions, implicit or explicit, but rather served to tions devoted to astrolabes, to weights and measures, set out their expertise and connect to the wider com- and later a large project on the history of medicine munities outlined above.69 Turner’s practice of publish- in Edinburgh.61 Such exhibitions drew on scholarship ing an annual list of these publications in his capacity from the universities to some extent, but most of the as secretary of the Scientific Instrument Commission research was undertaken by the curators themselves. rendered him an important gatekeeper to the knowl- Publishing was another way of drawing attention edge exchange, and ensured like-minded professionals to instruments and instrument expertise – perhaps would send him off-prints. There is a well-worn irony more effective in the long term than the exhibi- here: knowledge about material culture was rooted, tions that museologists tend to focus on. Although a communicated and distributed in print. small number of curators, including Greenaway, had These articles and catalogues contributed to patch- been publishing history of science for some time, the work coverage of the constitution of collections. period in question marks a sea-change in the quan- From the mid-century, efforts were evident to render tity of the literature.62 Margaret Weston took over the the map of instrument holdings more comprehen- Science Museum’s publishing function in the 1960s sive by way of national inventories.70 The Scientific and stimulated a flurry of guidebooks and specialist Instrument Commission’s plans in this respect took a catalogues (which, like those of other national muse- long time to bear fruit, but national-level volumes and ums, were published exclusively by Her Majesty’s fiches of varying quality gradually appeared from the Stationery Office until 1982), including for example 1960s.71 The British inventory took twenty-five years, two on chemistry by Greenaway.63 and was eventually shepherded to publication by In Edinburgh the accompanying catalogue to the Anderson and Bryden.72 As much as the end product, Short exhibition (reviewed by Jack Meadows in Annals however, the process of compiling them cemented of Science, the journal later edited by Gerard Turner) was the authority of those involved with oversight of the the first in a series of specialist publications thersm pro- national situation, and control over what was included duced, including Scottish Scientific Instrument Makers in a category, discipline and community.

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We will return to these definitions below; but, The curators whose careers have been detailed finally, it is important to observe that even more than here identified with particular kinds of scientific they liked to send publications out, curators were instruments: narrowly defined at first, and growing inclined to bring material in. Acquisitions shape with the community of practice. From Gunther and Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 collections; even more so than exhibitions or publi- Whipple onwards, eighteenth-century apparatus was cations, what curators collect forms their legacy. As the focus of much of the early work.79 This reflected Morrison-Low remembered of her training, ‘It’s the proliferation of apparatus in the Enlightenment very important that you collect really good material – instruments that were attractive, collectable, port- because after you’re gone, what else is there apart able, and which survived, but not in too great a vol- from what you have collected?’73 Previous collect- ume. There is therefore an anachronism inherent: as ing at the rsm had been ‘haphazard’, and, worse, an Deborah Jean Warner was to argue, only in the nine- important collection previously on loan had been teenth century would these ‘become’ scientific instru- sold at the behest of the lender’s heir.74 Encouraged ments, and previously had been classified according by Thomson, the new assistant keepers set about to natural philosophy, mathematics, and optics.80 Of actively collecting. Focusing on eighteenth-century these, the latter were especially popular with curators Scottish natural philosophy, Bryden secured gifts and in the mid-twentieth century, especially microscopes further loans, and where possible purchased material and telescopes.81 Horology, too, was enduringly preva- in the expanding auction market, something he had lent, especially, as one might expect, at Greenwich; more liberty to do once at the Whipple with its associ- although some clocks are scientific and some are not ated bequest.75 His successors in Edinburgh secured (see Richard Dunn’s article in this issue). Given the an important transfer of natural philosophy mate- existing collections and Anderson’s developing exper- rial from the University of Edinburgh, including a tise, chemistry was a strength in Edinburgh, as it was Short telescope, and eventually important collections in South Kensington under Greenaway. There were of microscopes and Scottish instruments from the also overlapping communities devoted to particular collector Arthur Frank.76 This connoisseurship con- instruments: Francis Maddison in Oxford, for exam- trasted with the ‘rescue’ collecting of their industrial ple, was part of a network devoted to astrolabes.82 peers; here the skills and tastes of the historian of sci- By the 1980s, instrument scholars were turning ence, the curator of recent science, and the industrial their attention to nineteenth-century instrumen- archaeologist, were clearly demarcated. They went to tation; a key hinge was the 1984 sic conference in different modes of collecting, and different markets; Amsterdam.83 As Anderson outlined the following they developed different skill sets and networks. year in a programmatic statement of the parameters of the national inventory, ‘instruments are not included which were constructed after the 19th century . . . Defining a community Areas covered by the inventory include surveying, navigation, astronomy, mathematics, optics (though The curators who spoke on aspects of astronomy in not ophthalmology), natural philosophy and chemis- 1968 were by the early 1980s established within a new try.’ He continued, community of practice based around scientific instru- Certain groups of peripheral material have been excluded. ments. They developed their professional identity in This includes most instruments which could be described parallel to but distinctly from their university peers, as domestic, such as barometers, clocks and watches, though as well as other groups within and around the her- clocks used for scientific or astronomical purposes have itage sector. They carved out their credibility with sometimes been incorporated . . . [only] Sundials produced material culture: the curator defined the parameters by scientific instrument makers have been listed . . . Nearly all medical and surgical instruments have been left out.84 of the collection, which then defined the professional identity of the curator.77 A small group constructed a These other items were held in the collections in ques- particular community of practice in the 1970s, and as tion, and were the subject of exhibitions and enquiries, Inkeri Hakamies has recently reminded us, the shared but in their cataloguing and publications, curators con- activities and interests contributed to a powerful sense centrated on particular kinds of things as they built their of identity, and excluded others.78 expertise and fashioned their professional identities.

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Still the definition of what constituted a scientific because they give a dimension on the past which is not given instrument was relatively narrow, which as Warner by … manuscripts and books.90 noted ‘appealed to the growing cadre of instrument Curators define objects, which in turn define them. enthusiasts who wished to distinguish themselves Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 from tool-collectors and other antiquarians’.85 The parameters of collections and disciplines are his- Address for correspondence torically and culturally contingent. In particular, Dr Sam Alberti, Keeper of Science & Technology, National Museums Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh eh1 1jf. their field of study explicitly excluded the twentieth [email protected] century, when science and its machines were much larger.86 As Morrison-Low would later write, historical attention to scientific apparatus developed ‘curi- Acknowledgements ously not as an extension of interest in the history of This research was made possible by a Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial technology, the term “scientific instrument” has come Research Grant from the Art Fund, a British Society for the History of Science travel grant, a Science History Institute Short- to mean the material culture survivals of a former, if term Fellowship and National Museums Scotland. I would also like not also a more attractive, time’.87 Only later would to thank Robert Anderson, Carin Berkowitz, Alison Boyle, Robert the sis remit ‘embrace gas chromatographs or Geiger Fox, Alison Morrison-Low, the ‘Oral History of Science Curating’ counters as much as the aesthetically pleasing instru- participants and those who took part in the 2017 Scientific 88 Instrument Commission Congress and the 2018 Cain conference at ments beloved of the “Brass brigade”’. the Science History Institute. Mustering the Brass Brigade had implications for both museums and other elements of history of science scholarship. They arguably concentrated exper- Notes and references tise in a small number of specialist collections, and 1 National Museums Scotland Science & Technology files rsm/ in establishing a distinct curatorial identity may have s&t/Corr./ djb/1968/Astronomy conference. exacerbated the very museum–university separation 2 H. Wilkinson, ‘Negotiating Change: Curatorial practice in UK they argued against. Some of this cohort would go on museums, 1960–2001’, Ph.D., University of Leicester (2014), p. 209. to play key roles in what would later be dubbed the 3 G. N. Swinney, ‘Towards an Historical Geography of a ‘material turn’ in the history of science. It is notable, “National” Museum: The Industrial Museum of Scotland, the however, that although this generated some fine pub- Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art and the Royal Scottish lications, it has had little impact on the quantity of Museum, 1854–1939’, Ph.D., University of Edinburgh (2013); R. Bud, ‘Responding to stories: the 1876 Loan Collection hands-on instrument use. Instrument attention con- of Scientific Apparatus and the Science Museum’,Science tinued to come from elsewhere; curators continued Museum Group Journal 1 (2014), pp. 1–14; P.J.T. Morris to rub shoulders and share interests with dealers and (ed.), Science for the Nation: Perspectives on the history of the Science Museum (London, 2010); A. V. Simcock (ed.), Robert collectors and enthusiasts at sic, sis, and elsewhere; T. Gunther and the Old Ashmolean (Oxford, 1985); L. Taub the material focus of these communities continued and F. Willmoth (eds), The Whipple Museum of the History regardless.89 Only by looking at instrument scholar- of Science: Instruments and interpretations (Cambridge, 2006); K. Littlewood and B. Butler, Of Ships and Stars: Maritime ship from the collections’ perspective can we under- heritage and the founding of the National Maritime Museum, stand fully how instruments were used and valued. Greenwich (London, 1998). The British Museum also housed Science curators carved out a discipline, or at least an important collection of early instruments. a sub-discipline, around existing material culture 4 J. A. Bennett, ‘Obituary: Lt-Cdr Derek Howse’, The Independent, 3 August 1998; P. van der Merwe, ‘Lt-Commander defined in a particular way. Just as instruments were David Waters: authority on the Atlantic convoy war’, The wielded by those who first made and used them for Independent, 7 January 2013. A note on terminology: ‘keeper’ professional purposes, so curators used instruments is a historic museum role that in Victorian Britain denoted the (mere) professional who cared for collections under the guid- to define their professional identity. One of them ance of amateur curators. By the mid-twentieth century, the considered himself ‘a historian who worked in three keeper was the head of a department or small museum, man- dimensions’ and another remembered: aging assistant keeper(s), and below them museum assistants. These titles endure in university and national museums, where I was being paid as a historian of material culture (to put they were pegged to specific civil service ranks. it in the buzzwords of today), and it seemed to me that 5 R.G.W. Anderson, interview with S.J.M.M Alberti, 6 the historian of material culture needs to use the artefacts, November 2017, ‘An Oral History of Science Curating’ re- and needs to read the artefacts, and interpret the artefacts, cording 5, National Museums Scotland Science & Technology

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files. See for example H. D. Howse, ‘Astronomy and time’, in Collections bshs 10/8/10; ‘Report of the Science Museum The National Maritime Museum, ed. B. Greenhill (London, for the Year 1971’, typescript, 35 pp., Science Museum Group 1982), pp. 103–12. Library tl 8145 bf; Greenaway, op. cit. (note 15), p. 149. 6 G. L’E. Turner, interview with A.-K. Mayer, 19 March 1998, 18 P.J.T. Morris, ‘The image of chemistry presented by the

British Society for the History of Science Oral History Science Museum, London in the twentieth century: An Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 Project, ‘The History of Science in Britain, 1945–65’, international perspective’, Hyle – International Journal for typescript transcript, 40 pp., University of Leeds Special Philosophy of Chemistry 12 (2006), pp. 215–39. Collections bshs 10/8/24; University of Oxford Committee 19 A. Q. Morton, ‘The Neutrino and Nuclear Physics, 1930– of the Museum of the History of Science, ‘Report for 1963– 1940’, Ph.D., University of London (1982). 4’, 19 pp., University of Oxford Museum of the History of Science mss Museum Archive; ‘Professor Gerard Turner’, 20 A. D. Morrison-Low, interview with S.J.M.M. Alberti, 7 The Telegraph, 26 August 2012; R.G.W. Anderson, J. A. June 2017, ‘An Oral History of Science Curating’ recording Bennett and W. F. Ryan (eds.), Making Instruments Count: 1, National Museums Scotland Science & Technology files; Essays on historical scientific instruments presented to Gerard Bryden interview, op. cit. (note 8). L’Estrange Turner (London, 1993). 21 A. R. Hall with J. Ravetz, Report on the Teaching of the History 7 A network later exemplified by W. D. Hackmann and A. J. of Science, Medicine and Technology in Universities and Technical Turner (eds), Learning, Language, and Invention: Essays pre- Colleges in the United Kingdom (London, 1971); A.-K. Mayer, sented to Francis Maddison (Aldershot, 1994). ‘“I have been very fortunate . . .”. Brief report on the bshs Oral History Project: “The History of Science in Britain, 8 D. J. Bryden, interview with S.J.M.M. Alberti, 30 June 2017, 1945–65”’, British Journal for the History of Science 32 (1999), ‘An Oral History of Science Curating’ recording 2, National pp. 223–35; R. Bud, ‘History of science and the Science Museums Scotland Science & Technology files. Museum’, British Journal for the History of Science 30 (1997), 9 R.G.W. Anderson, Playfair. The collection and the teach- pp. 47–50. ing of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, 1713–1858 22 ‘Forbes E.G.’, University of Edinburgh Archives Coll-312: (Edinburgh, 1978). e99.22; J. Henry, ‘Historical and other studies of science, tech- 10 D. J. Bryden – M. A. Hoskin, 18 May 1970, National nology and medicine in the University of Edinburgh’, Notes Museums Scotland Science & Technology files rsm/s&t/ and Records of the Royal Society 62 (2008), pp. 223–35; A. J. Corr./ djb/1970/h. Meadows, ‘Eric Gray Forbes 1933–1984’, Annals of Science 42 11 Wilkinson, op. cit. (note 2). (1985), pp. 547–8. 12 National Museums Scotland Science & Technology files rsm/ 23 D. J. Bryden – A. G. Thomson, 3 December 1969, ‘Annual s&t/Corr./djb/1968/Astronomy conference; D. J. Bryden, Report 1969’, typescript, 4 pp. on p. 2, National Museums James Short and his Telescopes (Edinburgh, 1968); G. L’E. Scotland Science & Technology filesrsm /s&t/Corr./ Turner, ‘James Short, FRS, and his contribution to the con- djb/1969/m. The rsm Technology Department was also struction of reflecting telescopes’,Notes and Records of the involved in the history of technology course at Heriot-Watt Royal Society 24 (1969), pp. 91–108. University. 13 J. A. Bennett, interview with S.J.M.M. Alberti, 19 September 24 ‘Forbes E.G.’, University of Edinburgh Archives Coll-312: 2017, ‘An Oral History of Science Curating’ recording 4, e99.22, Box 10, Folder 36. National Museums Scotland Science & Technology files; 25 Morrison-Low interview, op. cit. (note 20). Taub and Willmoth, op. cit. (note 3); S. Falk, ‘The scholar as craftsman: Derek de Solla Price and the reconstruction of a 26 E. G. Forbes, A. J. Meadows, and H. D. Howse, Greenwich medieval instrument’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society Observatory: The Royal Observatory at Greenwich and 68 (2014), pp. 111–34. Herstmonceux, 1675–1975 (London, 1975). 14 A. Scott, ‘Ambition and anxiety: The Science Museum, 27 Bryden interview, op. cit. (note 8). 1950–1983’, in Morris, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 90–110. On the 28 A.-K. Mayer, ‘When things don’t talk: knowledge and belief role of history of science in the post-war Science Museum see in the inter-war humanism of Charles Singer (1876–1960)’, A. Boyle, ‘“Not for their beauty”: instruments and narratives British Journal for the History of Science 38 (2005), pp. 325–47, at the Science Museum, London’, in Scientific Instruments on p. 330; A.-K. Mayer, ‘Setting up a discipline: conflicting on Display, ed. S. Ackermann, R.L. Kremer and M. Miniati agendas of the Cambridge History of Science Committee, (Leiden, 2014), pp. 37–60. 1936–1950’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 31 15 P.J.T. Morris and R. Bud, ‘Obituary: Frank Greenaway’, (2000), pp. 665–89; A.-K. Mayer, ‘Setting up a discipline, ii: Science Museum Group Journal 1 (2014), pp. 1–6; F. Greenaway, British history of science and “the end of ideology”, 1931– Chymica acta: An autobiographical memoir, ed. R.G.W. 1948’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 35 (2004), Anderson, P.J.T. Morris and D.A. Robinson (Huddersfield, 41–72. 2007). 29 A. R. Hall, ‘Presidential address: Can the history of sci- 16 A.D.C. Simpson, interview with S.J.M.M. Alberti, 19 July ence be history?’, British Journal for the History of Science 4 2017, ‘An Oral History of Science Curating’ recording 3, (1969), 207–20; see also J. A. Bennett, ‘A role for collections National Museums Scotland Science & Technology files; in the research agenda of the history of science?’, in Research Anderson interview, op. cit. (note 5). and Museums, ed. G. Cavalli-Björkman and S. Lindqvist 17 F. Greenaway, interview with A.-K. Mayer, 5 March 1998, (Stockholm, 2008), pp. 193–209. British Society for the History of Science Oral History Project, 30 Standing Commission on Museums and Galleries, Universities ‘The History of Science in Britain, 1945–65’, typescript and Museums. Report on the Universities in Relation to their transcript, 31., on pp. 13–14, University of Leeds Special Own and Other Museums (London, 1968), p. 22. See also J. A.

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Bennett, ‘Museums and the establishment of the history for Annual Report – 1969’, 3 pp. typescript, 17 December of science at Oxford and Cambridge’, British Journal for the 1969, National Museums Scotland Science & Technology files History of Science 30 (1997), pp. 29–46. rsm/s&t/Corr./djb/1970/m. 31 A. Keller, ‘A collection to be preserved’, in The Whipple 46 A. Williams (ed.), A Heritage for Scotland. Scotland’s National Museum of the History of Science: Instruments and interpre- Museums and Galleries: The next 25 years (Edinburgh, 1981). Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 tations, ed. L. Taub and F. Willmoth (Cambridge, 2006), 47 G. L’E. Turner, ‘A decade in the study of scientific instru- pp. 69–74; Bennett interview, op. cit. (note 13); Bryden inter- ments’, in An Apparatus of Instruments: The role of the view, op. cit. (note 8). Scientific Instrument Commission, ed. R.G.W. Anderson and 32 G. L’E. Turner, ‘The Museum of the History of Science’, G. L’E. Turner (London, 1993), pp. 5–14; S. J. Schechner, Oxford 21 (1967), pp. 53–60, on p. 59; Simpson interview, op. ‘Instrumentation’, in A Companion to the History of American cit. (note 16). Science, ed. G. M. Montgomery and M. A. Largent (Malden, ma 33 ‘Programme of the xv International Congress of the History , 2015), pp. 408–19. of Science Edinburgh 10–19 August 1977’, typescript, 48 Hall with Ravetz, op. cit. (note 21); M. Holbrook, R.G.W. 1977, in University of Edinburgh Archives e99.22, Box 1, Anderson, and D. J. Bryden, Science Preserved: A directory of Folder 6. scientific instruments in collections in the United Kingdom and 34 Bernard Finn, new in post at the Smithsonian Museum of Eire (London, 1992); University of Oxford Committee of the History and Technology, spoke on submarine telegraphy; Vijai Museum of the History of Science, ‘Report for 1966–7’, 31 pp., Givind on Indian scientific instruments; and the inventor University of Oxford Museum of the History of Science mss Jon H. Myer on ‘A Forgotten Instrument’. See International Museum Archive; ‘Report of the Science Museum for the Year Congress of the History of Science, Abstracts of Scientific 1973’, typescript, 38 pp., Science Museum Group Library tl Section Papers (Edinburgh, 1977). In the proceedings aris- 8145 bf. ing from the meeting, of fifty-nine papers only Jim Bennett, 49 See for example ‘Report of the Science Museum for the year then at the National Maritime Museum, wrote about instru- 1960’, typescript, 29 pp., Science Museum Group Library tl ments: J. A. Bennett, ‘The giant reflector, 1770–1870’, in 8145 bf. Human Implications of Scientific Advance: Proceedings of the 50 ‘Professor Gerard Turner’, The Telegraph, 26 August 2012. xvth International Congress of the History of Science, ed. E. G. Forbes (Edinburgh, 1978), pp. 553–8. 51 Morrison-Low interview, op. cit. (note 20). 35 R.G.W. Anderson, ‘Scientific artefacts in museum collec- 52 H. Wynter, The Price of Every Thinge (Edinburgh, 2010). tions: their value to the historian’, in Symposium on the Role of 53 Bryden interview, op. cit. (note 8). Scottish Museums in Science (Edinburgh, 1979), a1–12, on a1; 54 ‘Professor Gerard Turner’, The Telegraph, 26 August 2012. See ‘Forbes E. G.’, University of Edinburgh Archives Coll-312: for example G. L’E. Turner, Collecting Microscopes (London, e99.22, Box 1, Folder 6. 1981). 36 Anderson interview, op. cit. (note 5). 55 Simpson interview, op. cit. (note 16). 37 S.J.M.M. Alberti, Nature and Culture: Objects, Disciplines 56 H. Wynter and A. J. Turner, Scientific Instruments (London, and the Manchester Museum (Manchester, 2009); C. Pearson, 1975). ‘Curators, Culture and Conflict: The effects of the Second World War on museums in Britain, 1926–1965’, Ph.D., 57 A.D.C. Simpson – H. Wynter, 14 November 1975, National University College London (2008); Wilkinson, op. cit. (note Museums Scotland Science & Technology files rsm/s&t/ 2); A. Babbidge, ‘Forty years on’, Cultural Trends 14 (2004), Corr./ adcs/1975/w. pp. 3–66. 58 J. Darius, ‘Editor’s page’, Bulletin of the Scientific Instruments 38 Scott, op. cit. (note 14); Scottish Education Department, Society 1 (Summer 1983), pp. 1–2, on p. 1. Turner’s misgivings Annual Report of the Royal Scottish Museum for the Calendar were mentioned in Allen Simpson’s interview, op. cit. (note Year 1965 (Edinburgh, 1966). The Royal Scottish Museum 16). formed separate departments of education and design in the 59 ‘Report of the Science Museum for the Year 1974’, typescript, 1970s: see Royal Scottish Museum, Triennial Report 1977–79 38 pp., Science Museum Group Library tl 8145 bf. (Edinburgh, 1979). 60 Staged 26 July – 7 September 1968. See Bryden, op. cit. (note 39 Wilkinson, op. cit. (note 2). 12); National Museums Scotland Science & Technology files 40 F. Greenaway et al., ‘Museums of science and technology: rsm/s&t/Corr./djb/1968/Astronomy conference; D. J. problems of technique and management’, Museums Journal 66 Bryden – A. G. Thomson, 20 January 1969, ‘Annual Report (1967), pp. 245–86. 1968’, typescript, 3 pp., National Museums Scotland Science & Technology files rsm/s&t/Corr./djb/1969/m. 41 ‘Report of the Science Museum for the Year 1968’, typescript, 34 pp., Science Museum Group Library tl 8145 bf. 61 Royal Scottish Museum, op. cit. (note 38); R.G.W. Anderson, The Mariner’s Astrolabe (Edinburgh, 1972); R.G.W. Anderson 42 S.V.F. Butler, Science and Technology Museums (Leicester, and A.D.C. Simpson, Edinburgh and Medicine (Edinburgh, 1992). 1976); R.G.W. Anderson and A.D.C. Simpson (eds.), The 43 R. Hewison, The Heritage Industry: Britain in a climate of de- Early Years of the Edinburgh Medical School (Edinburgh, 1976). cline (London, 1987). 62 Greenaway, op. cit. (note 15); Greenaway interview, op. cit. 44 John Liffen, ‘Behind the scenes: housing the collections’, in (note 17). Morris, op. cit. (note 3). pp. 273–93. 63 ‘Report of the Science Museum for the Year 1966’, type- 45 T. Dalyell, ‘Obituary: Basil Skinner’, The Independent, 9 April script, 36 pp., Science Museum Group Library tl 8145 bf; 1995; Bryden interview, op. cit. (note 8); J. D. Storer, ‘Notes F. Greenaway, Chemistry. 1 Chemical Laboratories and Apparatus

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to 1850 (London, 1966); F. Greenaway, Chemistry. 2 Chemical workshops in Scotland as illustrated by instruments from the Frank Laboratories and Apparatus from 1850 (London, 1966). Other collection at the Royal Museum of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1989); examples in that year included C. H. Gibbs-Smith, Aeronautics A. D. Morrison-Low, ‘Obituary: Arthur Frank’, Bulletin of the (London, 1966) and K. R. Gilbert, Fire Engines, and Other Scientific Instrument Society 87 (2005), pp. 36–8

Firefighting Appliances (London, 1966). 77 Alberti, op. cit. (note 37); S.J.M.M. Alberti, ‘The status Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article-abstract/31/3/519/5077066 by National Museums Scotland user on 09 December 2019 64 A.J. Meadows, ‘James Short and his Telescopes’ [book review], of museums: authority, identity, and material culture’, Annals of Science 25 (1969), p. 92; Bryden, op. cit. (note 12); in Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science, ed. D. N. D. J. Bryden, Scottish Scientific Instrument-makers (Edinburgh, Livingstone and C.W.J. Withers (Chicago, 2011), pp. 51–72; 1972); Anderson, op. cit. (note 9). T. F. Gieryn, Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the 65 Alberti, op. cit. (note 37). line (Chicago, 1999). 66 G. L’E. Turner, ‘Do museums of science & technology have 78 I. Hakamies, ‘Practice makes “museum people”’, Museum and a publications policy? A review of the current situation’, Society 15 (2017), pp. 142–52. in R.I.C. Charlton (ed.), Museum Publications in Science, 79 Bryden, for example, concentrated on the period 1700–1824 Technology and Medicine (Oxford, 1982), pp. 3–9, on. p. 3. while in Edinburgh. D. J. Bryden – M. A. Hoskin, 18 May 67 Simpson interview, op. cit. (note 16). 1970, National Museums Scotland Science & Technology files rsm/s&t/Corr./djb/1970/h. 68 Bryden interview, op. cit. (note 8). 80 D. J. Warner, ‘What is a scientific instrument, when did it be- 69 Turner interview, op. cit. (note 6). come one, and why?’, British Journal for the History of Science 70 R.G.W. Anderson, ‘National inventories of scientific instru- 23 (1990), pp. 83–93; see also Taub’s article in this issue. ments and the British contribution’, Bulletin of the Scientific 81 See for example Clarke, Morrison-Low and Simpson op. cit. Instruments Society 4 (1985), pp. 9–12; Turner, op. cit. (note (note 76). 47). 82 See for example Hackmann and Turner, op. cit. (note 7). 71 Centre National d’Histoire des Sciences, Inventaire des instruments scientifiques historiques conserves en Belgique (Brussels, 83 P. R. de Clercq (ed.), Nineteenth-Century Scientific Instruments 1959–60). and their Makers: Papers presented at the Fourth Scientific 72 University of Oxford Committee of the Museum of the Instrument Symposium (Amsterdam, 1985); see also for ex- History of Science, ‘Report for 1966–7’, 31 pp., University ample, G. L’E. Turner, Nineteenth-Century Scientific Instruments (London, 1983). of Oxford Museum of the History of Science mss Museum Archive; Holbrook with Anderson and Bryden, op. cit. (note 84 Anderson, op. cit. (note 70), p. 11; Holbrook with Anderson 48). and Bryden, op. cit. (note 48). 73 Morrison-Low interview, op. cit. (note 20). 85 Warner, op. cit. (note 80), p. 92. 74 D. J. Bryden, ‘Some general remarks pertaining to the acqui- 86 D. J. Bryden – A. G. Thomson, 22 February 1968, ‘Some gen- sition of scientific instruments’, 22 February 1968, typescript, eral remarks pertaining to the acquisition of scientific instru- 2 pp. National Museums Scotland Science & Technology ments’, typescript, 2 pp., on p. 1; National Museums Scotland files rsm/s&t/Corr./djb/1969/m; Scottish Education Science & Technology filesrsm /s&t/Corr./djb/1969/m. Department, Annual Report of the Royal Scottish Museum for the Calendar Year 1961 (Edinburgh, 1962); A. D. Morrison- 87 A. D. Morrison-Low, ‘“Feasting my eyes with the view of Low, ‘Sold at Sotheby’s: Sir John Findlay’s cabinet and the fine instruments”: scientific instruments in Enlightenment Scottish antiquarian tradition’, Journal of the History of Scotland, 1680–1820’, in Science and Medicine in the Scottish Collections 7 (1995), pp. 197–209. Enlightenment, ed. C.W.J. Withers and P. Wood (East Linton, 2002), pp. 17–53, at p. 20. 75 Scottish Education Department, Report on the Royal Scottish Museum for the Year 1968 (Edinburgh, 1969); Bryden inter- 88 Scientific Instrument Society, ‘About thesis ’, www.scienti- view, op. cit. (note 8). ficinstrumentsociety.org/about/, accessed 13 July 2017. 76 R. H. Nuttall, Microscopes from the Frank Collection, 1800– 89 S.J.M.M. Alberti, ‘Why collect science?’, Journal of 1860 (Jersey, 1979); T. N. Clarke, A. D. Morrison-Low, and Conservation and Museum Studies 15 (2017), pp. 1–10. A.D.C. Simpson, Brass and Glass: Scientific instrument making 90 Greenaway interview, op. cit. (note 17), p. 29; Bryden interview, op. cit. (note 8).

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