Stories from the stores

A few days ago, I told you about riverfront industry in Greenwich. I recently made another Thames-side discovery.

Just by Masthouse Terrace pier on the Isle of Dogs, you can see the original launching slip for the record-breaking ship, the Great Eastern.

Great Eastern launching slip, Isle of Dogs (David Rooney)

Close by is the frontage of its manufacturer, John Scott Russell.

John Scott Russell building, Isle of Dogs (David Rooney)

The Great Eastern was huge. Designed by Brunel and built by Russell, when launched in 1858 she was by far the largest ship ever built. In fact, she was called Leviathan (huge or powerful thing) during construction.

'The Great Eastern on the Stocks', 1850s (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Despite several launch attempts, she refused to budge, and had to be pushed into the Thames using hydraulic jacks built by the Tangye company.

Richard Tangye with the 'Great Eastern', Millwall, 1850s (Science Museum / Science & Society)

This commission was the making of Tangye, who later advertised, ‘we launched the Great Eastern, the Great Eastern launched us.’ We’ve quite a few Tangye items in our collections – browse here. (PS. Tangye’s great-great-granddaughter, Charlotte, is a friend of mine!)

By this time, satirists were questioning the use of this monster. This cartoon from our archives suggests ‘what to do with her now you’ve got her off’…

'A Suggestion: The Leviathan, what to do with her now you've got her off', 1858 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

The ship, scrapped in the 1880s, may seem like a distant memory, but it’s surprising what can still be found on the streets, by the river, and tucked away in museums…

In my last post I told you about my weekend of London tunnel visits, culminating in an exceedingly rare chance to walk through Brunel’s Thames Tunnel from Rotherhithe to Wapping.

Well, to help acclimatise to the underground world of Rotherhithe, my friends and I had spent the morning in training, by walking through the Rotherhithe Tunnel.

Entrance to the Rotherhithe Tunnel, 2010 (David Rooney)

Unlike its 1840s counterpart a shade further west, built for pedestrians and taken over by the railway, the Rotherhithe Tunnel, opened in 1908, was originally for horse-drawn traffic but soon overrun with motor vehicles. But pedestrians have always been allowed through.

In the Rotherhithe Tunnel, 2010 (David Rooney)

To be honest, our walk was pretty hard work. The pavements are narrow, the vehicles many, the air fume-laden and the noise infernal. We really had to keep our wits about us. But it was well worth it, just to experience another historic Thames tunnel.

And historic it really is. When I got home, I looked to see what our collections hold on the tunnel, and what I discovered blew me away. Buried in our stores is a set of 56 original photographic prints depicting the construction of the tunnel.

Here’s a tiny taster of what I found:

Construction of the Rotherhithe Tunnel (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Construction of the Rotherhithe Tunnel (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Construction of the Rotherhithe Tunnel (Science Museum / Science & Society)

How’s that for a bit of London history! If you want to see all 56 in all their glory, go to our picture library website and type ‘Rotherhithe Tunnel’ into the search box. And keep these remarkable pictures in mind next time you’re stuck in traffic down the Rotherhithe Tunnel…

As today is St Patrick’s Day and I’m of the Paddy persuasion myself, here are a few objects with Irish links in our astronomy collection.

Rowley's original orrery, 1712 (Science Museum)

This is one of the earliest mechanical models of the Solar System, on display in Science in the 18th Century. It was made for the 4th Earl of Orrery, Charles Boyle. His County Cork title gave its name to subsequent planetary models.

Another Irish peer with a keen interest in astronomy was William Parsons, the 3rd Earl of Rosse.  He built several telescopes at his castle in County Offaly. The largest, known as the Leviathan of Parsonstown, was the world’s biggest telescope for over 70 years. You can see its six-foot  mirror in Cosmos & Culture, or visit the reconstructed telescope at Birr Castle.

The Rosse Mirror, 1842-45 (Science Museum)

There’s one big snag with building a telescope in Ireland – rain. Lots of it. Many of Lord Rosse’s visitors moaned about ruined observing nights. But during some rare breaks in the clouds, Rosse was able to observe nebulae, hazy patches of sky that had been puzzling astronomers for years. Thanks to the great mirror’s light-gathering power, he could see that some had spiral structures. We now know they are galaxies beyond our own. (Today, ‘nebula’ has a different meaning in astronomy).

Another telescope used to study nebulae was Isaac Roberts’ twin equatorial telescope. Its 20-inch reflecting telescope and stand were made by Grubb of Dublin.

Twin equatorial telescope, 1885 (Science Museum)

And finally, since it’s customary to celebrate Paddy’s Day with a drop of the black stuff, here’s a  photo of the black drop effect. Sláinte!

The black drop effect is sometimes seen when Venus transits the Sun. (Statis Kalyvas and VT-2004, used with permission)

I had decided to write a few lines on a Museum object called Silverbird. On a whim I asked Wikipedia to show me what it could find and I was delighted to learn also of a similarly named passerine bird native to Eastern Africa, a former software label of BT from the mid 1980s and even Leo Sayer’s debut album.

Science Museum’s scale model of Silbervogel. (Science Museum)

Despite such tempting distractions I decided to stick with my Silverbird, or the more accurately named Silbervogel, the Museum’s scale model of a 1930s winged and rocket-propelled, sub-orbital bomber that was designed to climb into space, glide back through the atmosphere and drop its deadly payload on the enemy.

Silbervogel had been the brainchild of Eugen Sanger while a research student in Vienna. He went on to work for the Luftwaffe and in post-war years for the French Air Ministry before returning to Germany to continue his pioneering aerospace research. Just the other day his son popped into the Museum to be filmed alongside the model.

American test pilots by the HL-10 Lifting Body aircraft. (NASA/Science Museum)

Silbervogel never flew, but it did influence aviation and space projects during the 1950s and 1960s, including the X-15 rocket plane, the Lifting Body aircraft configuration and the early research on what became the US Space Shuttle. That’s why the Museum’s workshops constructed our model: to provide some historical context to the old Exploration of Space gallery’s Shuttle display case.

First launch of the Shuttle, 1981 (NASA/Science Museum)

Of course, the Shuttle programme itself is now nearing the end of its life and with President Obama cancelling NASA’s plans to go back to the moon it is far from clear where the US will aim for next in space. Leo Sayer’s next song on his Silverbird album is The Show Must Go On. But it’s by no means clear that it will.

I loved our public health curator’s recent post about his expedition to sniff out London’s underground sewerage system. While Stewart was nosing around the drains, I spent last weekend in some rather less odorous tunnels.

Oldest first. I’ve mentioned the Brunel Thames Tunnel before. It was the first tunnel under a river, now forming part of the East London railway, and in advance of the line reopening in May, officials led two days of walking tours through this historic construction. I managed to grab tickets.

Detail of Thames Tunnel wall, 13 March 2010 (David Rooney)

It’s a railway now, but it started out as a pedestrian arcade linking Rotherhithe and Wapping, and was itself the subject of many depictions and souvenirs, being portrayed as the ideal spot for Victorians to promenade, perambulate and generally show off.

'A correct view of the Thames Tunnel' (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Annual ’fancy fairs’ offered ‘fancy glass blowing’, ‘a ball room 150 feet long’ and ‘the mysterious lady’ (don’t ask). On any normal day, visitors could expect to see each little connecting alcove thronged with women selling ‘multifarious trumpery’.

Souvenir medal of the Thames Tunnel, 1843 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

We’ve lots more of this trumpery in our collections, much of which is now listed online. But the underground mall was a financial flop, and by the 1860s the tunnel was taken over by the East London Railway.

The trains will soon be running again, but as I dawdled along on foot, it wasn’t hard to imagine just how remarkable this tunnel must have been in 1850s London – and to realise how much we take for granted the remarkable world beneath our feet.

More about my underground weekend coming up…

Curatorial work can be pretty desk-bound, so opportunities to get your hands dirty are not to be missed. I recently fulfilled a long-held ambition to venture into London’s Victorian sewers. Hey – we’ve all got to dream…

Off on a jolly in the London sewers

Back in the 1800’s London’s sanitation was terrible, as this satirical engraving of ”Monster Soup commonly called Thames Water”, illustrates:

'Monster Soup', 1828. (Science Museum / Science & Society)

It was a public health disaster, that claimed numerous lives. London’s sewage system, although it’s still being modernised, is essentially a Victorian construction engineered by Joseph Bazalgette to deal with the daily excretions of millions of Londoners.

Built with the slightest of gradients, the sewers flow from west to east London where a number of pumping stations raise up the contents again, before allowing it to travel onwards. One of these is Abbey Mills Pumping Station, near Stratford, which draws up the flow 40 feet into the raised Northern Outfall sewer – my glamorous destination for the day.

Bazalgette's Abbey Mills Pumping Station, Stratford, London, 1868. (Science Museum / Science & Society)

From the outside, the Northern Outfall looks like a disused railway embankment. It bridges roads. It forms a cycle path.

Once clad in disposable bodysuit, gloves, waders and hardhat, we entered via a painfully vertical ladder. The first surprise was the smell – or rather the lack of it. A slight ammonia whiff, but not that unpleasant.

Me and my fellow travellers were accompanied by guides, similarly clad but armed with beeping gas monitors. Their torches exposing a world of arched brickwork, sluice gates and rounded tunnels disappearing off into the gloom. And yes, the opaque watery soup flecked with brown that we were wading through. But closer inspection of the shingly mud banked against the walls revealed unexpected things – a toy car, a metal spoon, part of a mobile phone. Evidence that the sewers also deal with what goes down London’s street drains.

Apart from some alarming collections of ‘matter’ trapped in brick crevices and around ladder rungs, it looks pretty good up there – considering its age. And, after an extended wander and one near tumble (it happens – trip to A & E advisable), we surfaced. Impressed with Bazalgette’s monumental handiwork, we headed for a more low key public health experience – the long hot shower.

If you’re planning to have a look at Richard Wilson’s Slice of Reality sculpture on the Greenwich peninsula, following my last post, you’ll find plenty else of interest along the Thames path while you’re there.

The area was once a hot-bed of industry, and there’s still plenty going on, though there’s been a spate of demolitions recently that are rather depressing for those interested in our industrial heritage.

One aspect of Greenwich’s industrial story is little-known, and even the best local historians are having trouble piecing together the details. But it seems certain that Henry Bessemer, indelibly associated with the Sheffield steel industry, built a factory on the Greenwich peninsula in the 1860s, near the site of the what became the Victoria Deep Water Terminal, just along from Wilson’s sculpture.

Greenwich peninsula, near old Victoria Deep Water Terminal (David Rooney)

I wrote about Bessemer in a recent post. His eponymous converter, one of which we’ve got on show, revolutionised the steel-making industry in Sheffield, but Bessemer was a south-London chap, and lived and died in Denmark Hill, near Peckham.

Bessemer converter on show at the Science Museum (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Bessemer’s Greenwich factory is long gone. But if it had succeeded, perhaps Greenwich would have become known for steel as much as for ships and timekeeping. More on the waterfront industry of east London in future posts…

This week in 1977, astronomers discovered faint rings around Uranus. Or did they? It’s just possible that William Herschel beat them to it by almost 200 years. Herschel’s notes for February 22, 1789 say ‘A ring was suspected’. It was assumed he was mistaken, but Dr Stuart Eves, inspired by one of our objects, has a theory that could explain Herschel’s observations.

Herschel in 1794. (Credit: Science Museum / Science & Society)

A few years ago, Stuart visited our Blythe House store to see this orrery, or planetary model – the only surviving one of this design.

Orrery made by John Fidler to a design by William Pearson, 1813-22 (Credit: Science Museum / Science & Society)

It shows Uranus with six moons. Herschel discovered the innermost two, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. By 1794 he had reported four additional satellites. However, no other astronomer managed to see them and observations in the 1850s showed Herschel was mistaken and may have been looking at background stars near the planet.

Wanting to know more about this, Stuart studied Herschel’s papers, which is where he found the 1789 reference to the ring, and also one from 1792 referring to ’a very faint ray, like a ring crossing the planet, over the centre’.

So if Herschel did see a ring, how come nobody else managed to until 1977? Well, Stuart’s theory is that if this ring behaves like Saturn’s rings then it might be getting darker and more diffuse, making it harder to see. Plus, the ring is only visible at certain alignments.

Herschel's 20ft telescope (Credit: Science Museum / Science & Society)

But could Herschel really have seen a ring using his 20ft telescope, a giant of the time but diminutive by today’s standards? Well, he built the best telescopes of his era, and was a meticulous observer. So maybe, just maybe… We’ll never know for sure, but it shows what a visit to our stores can trigger!

A 1998 Hubble Space Telescope image of the rings of Uranus (Credit: NASA / Science & Society)

I was walking up Kingsway at the weekend, and was stopped in my tracks by the most striking sculpture I’ve seen in a long time:

'Square the Block', Richard Wilson, Kingsway (David Rooney)

Square the Block, by internationally-renowned sculptor Richard Wilson RA, is a five-storey addition to a chamfered corner of a London School of Economics building.

I must admit to being a huge fan of Wilson’s work. I first encountered it in 2004, when I visited the Saatchi collection at London’s County Hall. One exhibit was Wilson’s 20:50, a room full of sump oil, which I found enchanting.

Wilson is also responsible for an artwork that’s closer to (my) home. Slice of Reality is a section of ship planted on the beach off the Greenwich peninsula, near the O2 (what used to be the Millennium Dome).

'Slice of Reality', Richard Wilson, Greenwich (David Rooney)

To make the sculpture, Wilson bought an old sand-dredger called Arco Trent, built in Devon in 1971, and had it chopped up in a shipyard on the River Tees before fixing it to the Greenwich beach.

I met Wilson on board the ship a couple of years ago, when he opened it for London Open House (a weekend when buildings that are normally off-limits throw open their doors to the public). He told me it is a perfect site for drawing and thinking, and I must say the views from its sun-drenched superstructure were magnificent.

We’ve got a handful of dredger models on show at the Science Museum, including Prins der Nederlanden, built three years before Arco Trent:

Model of 'Prins der Nederlanden', 1968 (detail, David Rooney, March 2010)

Extra points for anyone who can find the other two (much older) model dredgers in the gallery…

I was in Cambridge last week for a couple of meetings. It’s a glorious city. The buildings reek of history and tradition, the streets are filled with bright folk lost in dreamy thought and the river carries its languorous cargo of students and tourists in pole-driven punts, as depicted in this poster from the NRM collection:

'St John's, Cambridge' railway poster (NRM / Pictorial Collection / Science & Society)

And then there’s the bicycles. Cambridge is teeming with them, and whilst I’m all for cycle-friendly streets, I need eyes in the back of my head when I want to cross the road…

Most Cambridge bikes are pretty ordinary, but occasionally something special appears. Here’s a great picture of the ‘Cambridge Duad’ in 1895:

'The Cambridge Duad', Cambridge University, 1895 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

Look closely at the eighteen-year-old at the front. He’s Charles Rolls, keen cyclist and founder (with Henry Royce) of Rolls-Royce.

Here he is again that year, this time on a more conventional two-seat tandem:

Rolls and Legard riding a tandem, Cambridge University, 1895 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

These wonderful pictures are from an album put together by Rolls that’s now in our Library and Archives collection, available to view by appointment at our Swindon site.

Half a century on, the technology seems barely to have changed. We’ve a handful of tandems in our historic bikes collection, including this lightweight touring model by Rensch from 1948:

Tandem bicycle, 1948 (Science Museum / Science & Society)

For Charles Rolls, though, history was to be cut tragically short. Besides his cycling and motoring, he was also a pioneering aviator. In 1910, at an air tournament at Bournemouth, Rolls was killed performing a complex aerial manoeuvre. He was just 32.