The Science Museum Group is delighted to announce that it will be lending Robert Stephenson’s Rocket, one of Britain’s most famous feats of engineering, to the Great Exhibition of the North 2018.
On this Day in 1909 the Science Museum officially came into being. In celebration of our birthday we’ve asked staff to share their favourite objects from across the museum
Dominique Russell explores what lies behind our gallery show cases
A new lease of life for our shipping models in Voyages
Collections Assistant Dominique Russell describes the process of cleaning and preparing the incredible Elliott 401 computer to go on display.
Fabiana Portoni explores some of the dangers insect pests pose to the Museum’s collection
Sophia Oelman works on the conservation team for Information Age, a brand new gallery about the last 200 years of communication and information technology, opening this autumn. There are a huge range of exciting objects being prepared for the Information Age gallery. As one of the six conservators working on the project, I have the privilege of cleaning, documenting and repairing the objects before they go on public display. My favourite object is the Super Selector Radio Receiver, made around 1927 in London by Selectors […]
Alice Williams on working behind the scenes in our conservation team
Charlotte Connelly is a content developer on Information Age, an exciting new gallery about information and communication, opening in September 2014. This week over in the Information Age team we passed an exciting marker. Instead of counting the time to the gallery opening in years, for the first time we’ve slipped into counting in weeks and months. It seemed like a good opportunity to reflect on what we’ve done so far, and some of the interesting things we still have to […]
Cate Watson, Content Developer takes a look at the pride and passion of Charles Babbage. Designing the Difference and Analytical engines was a monumental task, demanding dedication and extreme attention to detail. Both engines were made up of thousands of parts that required near identical manufacturing – pushing Victorian technology to its limits. And Babbage was determined to make the machines operate without any possibility of errors. Babbage was very certain his engines would work. His passion for his machines kept […]
Charlotte Connelly is a Content Developer on Information Age, a new exhibition opening in 2014. She works on stories about mobile phones, radio and television. Diana McCormack and Esther Sharp are conservators based at the Science Museum’s stores at Wroughton. This week I’ve headed up to Manchester to talk about a tiny part of Information Age at the biggest ever history of science conference. Together with some other people from the Information Age team I’m running a special session about […]
Jennifer Bainbridge, Conservator on the new Information Age gallery, writes about the conservation of Morse code tapes from the SS Great Eastern, 1865, a ship which undertook the laying of transatlantic telegraph cable. John Liffen, Curator of Communication, provides details of transcription. As one of the conservators working on the new Information Age gallery, opening in September 2014, I handle, document and carry out treatments on objects destined for display. Working so closely with artifacts means I am often in the lucky position […]