The Science Museum, London has it has its origins in the Great Exhibition of 1851, held in Hyde Park in the huge glass building known as the Crystal Palace. In 1857, South Kensington Museum opened on the site of what is now Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1862 the Science collections move to separate buildings on Exhibition Road and in the 1880s a Science library is established, with a Science Collections director appointed in 1893.
In 1909, when the new buildings were opened, the title was confined to the Art Collections. The Science and Engineering Collections were finally separated administratively and the name 'Science Museum', in informal use since 1885, was officially adopted. It was on June 26th that year that the institutional reorganisation into two independent institutions was ratified and the title "Science Museum" was officially bestowed.
A change in the underlying philosophy of the Science Museum can be said to date from about 1960. The emphasis began to shift from technical education informed by historical exposition, to a more broadly-based policy of preservation of historical artefacts placed in their historical and social context.
The history of the Science Museum over the last 150 years has been one of continual change. The exhibition galleries are never static for long, as they have to reflect and comment on the increasing pace of change in science, technology,
industry and medicine. Even if this sometimes means the removal of some wellloved objects to store, we can be certain that some of their modern replacements will become cherished in turn.
Date
1878
Scope and ContentThree mounted sepia photographs of drawings of the side elevation, end elevation and plan of the calculating machine or difference engine of 1830, designed by Charles Babbage.
Charles Babbage was born in 1791 in London. He began to show his talent for mathematics and invention from an early age. Following a private education, Babbage went to study at Cambridge in 1810. However, he disagreed with the theories of mathematics taught there and set about supplementing his lectures with European theories of mathematics instead. Babbage established the Analytical Society with a group of fellow mathematics undergraduates. They wrote and published a history of calculus and a translation of Sylvestre Francois Lacroix's book on differential and integral calculus.
Whilst still at Cambridge, Babbage speculated about producing a machine to calculate logarithm tables for astronomy and navigation. He graduated in mathematics from Cambridge in 1814 and was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1816. In 1819 Babbage began to design and construct a reliable mechanical calculator capable of producing and printing accurate tables. By 1822 he had built a small calculating machine, or 'Difference Engine', able to work out complicated equations. With the backing of the Royal Society, Babbage secured an initial government grant of £1,500 to build a larger machine.
Work on the Difference Engine began in 1823, but was slower and more expensive than Babbage anticipated. Babbage's progress was further interrupted by personal tragedy when his wife and two of his children died in 1827. By 1834, the government had contributed £17,000 to build the machine. However, Babbage's disagreements with both his engineer, Joseph Clement, and the government meant work on the Difference Engine ceased altogether. In 1842 the government took the final decision to abandon the Difference Engine.
By this time, Babbage was working on a more sophisticated engine, the 'Analytical Engine', which could perform multiple calculations, store numbers and be programmed using punched cards. Babbage's detailed drawings reveal the engine to be in many ways analogous to modern computers. He applied what he had learnt to design the 'Difference Engine No. 2', an improved version of his original engine.
Babbage continued to work on the design of the Analytical Engine for the rest of his life, creating several different versions of the machine. He was convinced of its usefulness but lacked the funding to build it. The machine was never completed.
Although Babbage is best known for his calculating engines, he was a lifelong inventor with a passion for improvement. His designs included an ophthalmoscope, an automaton for playing noughts and crosses, a ‘black box’ recorder for monitoring railway tracks and ‘speaking-tubes’ linking London and Liverpool amongst many other ideas.
Babbage was also enthusiastic about promoting the usefulness of science in society. He helped set up the Astronomical Society (1820), the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1831) and the Statistical Society of London (1834). Between 1827 and 1835 he held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge. He died in London in 1871, still working on the Analytical Engine.
In 1991 the Science Museum constructed the Difference Engine No. 2 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Babbage’s birth. The machine was based on Babbage’s original plans and demonstrated for the first time the viability of his designs.
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