ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Making the wheels go round: a long view of British engineers and ‘applied mechanics’ in the Special Loan Collection of 1876

• In Event: Spirit of 1876: The Special Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus: International Science Museum Links. 1

English Abstract

The 1876 Special Loan Exhibition of Scientific Apparatus included a surprisingly large amount of material from what might be termed the heavier end of the engineering spectrum. ‘Applied mechanics’ in the Exhibition included properties of materials, structures at rest and in motion, prime movers, reservoirs of energy, and regulators, as well as shipping and naval architecture, marine engineering and ‘the application of the principles of mechanics to machinery as used in the arts’. Though this was intended to be regarded as ‘chiefly referring to education, research and other scientific purposes’, it is not clear whether the engineering community readily accepted their area of expertise being appropriated in the name of ‘applied science’. Book-ending the 1876 Exhibition, the 1860s saw the establishment of machinery collections and a growing awareness of the loss of engineering heritage, while the 1880s saw the establishment of the South Kensington Museum’s Machinery & Inventions Division. It is possible to argue that the proposition of engineering as ‘applied mechanics’ was an aberration when taking this long view, and sufficient unreconstructed engineers remained in circulation to ensure that old habits died hard.

Author

• Ben Russell, Science Museum, London