Space and Time
The physical sciences collection of World Museum Liverpool was built after the devastation caused by the incendiary fire of 1941. The collection has expanded, in part, due to transfers from the Decorative Arts Department, Regional History Department, Walker Art Gallery and the Prescot Museum. The collection also contains several significant collections from the Liverpool Royal Institution, Bidston Observatory, later the Proudman Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, and the Physics Department of the University of Liverpool.
Collections such as these are often made up of items of a singular type designed for a particular experiment such as DELPHI or LEP at CERN - the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, or the Equatorium, a post-Copernican planetary calculator made to special order in the early 17th century. As a consequence the collection is small but contains a number of significant items.
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Have you ever wondered why we have seasons or how sundials work? Find out in Sunbeams and Sundials, including information on the sundial dedicated to the late Martin Suggett.
There are some 200 astronomy items in the collection with particular strengths in historic telescopes and educational materials. Of particular note is the Wilson 24" Cassegrain reflector, which was used in the first experiments in photo-electric photometry and early attempts in astrophotography, the optics for William Lassell's 24" reflector, the Bidston 8.5" Merz refractor and 17th to 18th century astronomical sighting and computational apparatus.
There is a small collection of around 60 items reflecting advances in Atomic and Nuclear Physics. The emphasis is upon Liverpool University's role in advances in particle physics. Significant items are the Cyclotron Dees from the first Liverpool Cyclotron, the rotating condensor from the 156" synchrocyclotron as well as the remaining parts from Oliver Lodge's Ether apparatus. Of historical wartime significance are examples of a fused rice bowl from Hiroshima and a roof tile and rock sample from Nagasaki.
The physics teaching collection is represented by a collection of instruments and apparatus donated by Liverpool University and Liverpool John Moores University. This comprises a suite of instruments that would have been used in standard undergraduate physics courses from the late nineteenth century to the 1950s. The major areas of 19th century physics demonstration apparatus are represented within the fields of optics, pneumatics, hydraulics and mechanics.
The proximity of Bidston Observatory and the changing nature of research at that institution has enabled us to acquire all its past astronomical equipment (such as the Chronometer Hot Box, 8.5" Merz equatorial refractor plus the associated astronomical regulators and Oesler anemometer) as well as non-electronic oceanographic equipment, about 100 items in total. These include the Roberts-Lege Tide Predictor, Doodson Current Gauge and Fave and Lege Tide gauges.
The Liverpool scientific instrument collection has some 75 specimens displaying local innovations and examples of general retailed instruments. The term 'Scientific Instrument Maker' was loosely applied to a group of businesses which specialized in the manufacture and retail of a whole range of items. Many of the Liverpool businesses are listed simply as 'Opticians and Mathematical Instrument Makers' in the trade directories. These firms would typically offer octants, sextants, mariner's telescopes, compasses and chronometers and a representative suite of these items from the prime Liverpool makers is held within the collections. Many firms also sold astronomical telescopes, and instruments for surveying on land such as miner's dials and theodolites. These are also represented in the collection.
This is a small collection comprising a selection of different barometer types from the 18th and 19th centuries. Notable examples are Wheel, Cistern, and Obelisk Barometers from the late 18th to early 19th century as displayed in the recently toured Constable's Clouds exhibition.
The appreciation and enjoyment of popular science during the late 18th and 19th centuries meant that there was easy access in Liverpool for science education in the form of public lectures on a wide range of subjects. To cater for this popular taste in science many of the instrument makers added scientific demonstration equipment, magic lanterns and microscopes to their inventories. The collection includes a wide range of popular science education ephemera such as Urania's Mirror Cards, Orreries such as those made by W. Jones c 1795 and Phillip, Son and Nephew c 1870, globes by various makers and star charts.
The space science collection has about 100 items with particular strengths in British Rocketry and instrumentation packages. Of particular significance is the Blue Streak Rocket, now on display at the National Space Science Centre in Leicester, and the Astris third stage of the Europa One rocket.