Titbits in the archives: how to make and move an equatorium

This post is cross-posted from the Connecting with Collections blog.

At the start of this project I was only hoping to find some documentation linked to the equatorium that Derek Price built - so I was amazed when I found the equatorium itself.  It's now on display in the Whipple Museum for the History of Science (open Monday-Friday, 12.30-4.30; admission free).

But I still haven't found much of the documentation I was searching for in the first place.  I imagined I'd be able to track down at least a few references to the equatorium in the archives... but I've had little luck.  As always, of course, we researchers are dependent on what people thought was worth keeping.  In my case, because both the Cavendish Laboratory and Derek de Solla Price made big moves (to west Cambridge and the USA, respectively) not long after the equatorium was made, very few papers are conserved from that period.

However, I have had a little luck in other archives, and with the help of Derek Price's family I've been able to piece together a few more details about the early life of King Arthur's Table.

As I explained in a previous post, it was made in the Cavendish Laboratory, which was run at the time by Sir Lawrence Bragg.  Bragg had deliberately structured the Cavendish to create plenty of spare capacity in the workshops, so that experiments would never be delayed for want of a particular piece of equipment.  This helps explain how it was that a History student was able to get a model of a medieval astronomical instrument made by technicians who were more used to working on cutting-edge apparatus for experiments in molecular biology or metal physics.

What I hadn't realised was how quickly Price got the model made.  He first examined the manuscript in December 1951 and within weeks, it seems, refocused his entire research to place this one document at the centre.  As his diary shows, by March he was ready to make a model of the instrument described in the manuscript.

The model - King Arthur's Table - was certainly complete by May, because that month Price showed it off at a "Conversazione" at the Royal Society in London.  (In fact it's likely that the opportunity to describe his research at the Royal Society was a significant spur to the model's production.)

One thing I'd been wondering about this episode is how Price was able to move the model to the Royal Society.  After all, it was stuck in storage for many years precisely because it was too big to fit in a car!  As it turns out, Price had some help.  In the private papers of Rupert Hall, Price's supervisor and the first curator of the Whipple Museum, I came across a note detailing the travel arrangements for the Conversazione.  As neither Price nor the Museum had the capacity to transport such an item, Hall arranged to borrow the Chemical Laboratory van for the day.  The note instructs Hall to contact "a Mr Thompson" in the Department of Chemistry, in order to make the final arrangements.

In themselves, such diary entries and typewritten notes provide little information.  But they are small pieces of a much larger puzzle; it is through such scattered evidence that we must attempt to construct a coherent narrative.  I've realised how unlikely I am to have a "Eureka!" moment in the archives.  Rather, one must be grateful for whatever small titbits on offer, and make the best possible use of them in building better historical understanding.

Coming soon: Next week I'll be building another equatorium - using brass this time.  Come back soon to read all about it!

Why did Derek de Solla Price come to Cambridge?

This post is cross-posted from the Connecting with Collections blog.

In a previous post I introduced one of the main subjects of my research: the historian of science Derek de Solla Price.  Price, you'll recall, was studying for his second PhD here in Cambridge when he discovered the Equatorie of the Planetis manuscript in the library of Peterhouse.  As part of his research, he had what we're calling King Arthur's Table built at the Cavendish Laboratory.

Price c. 1948, shortly before coming to
Cambridge.  Courtesy of the Price family.

My research has raised lots of questions about Price.  These are interesting not only from a biographical point of view, but also for anyone curious about the atmosphere in which the history of science was launched as a separate discipline in Cambridge in the 1940s and 1950s.  The most obvious of these questions is: why did Price, at the age of 28, suddenly decide to become a historian of science?

This was a big decision.  In 1950 he already had a PhD in metal physics, and was teaching applied mathematics at the then University of Malaya, in Singapore.  He was aged 28, with a wife and baby daughter.  His work was going well: his boss at the University described him as "a very stimulating and helpful teacher."  But something made him give up his job and move halfway across the world.  He came to Cambridge with no prospect of a job and no real idea of what he was going to do.  Why?

With the help of the archives of Cambridge University and the Royal Institution, I have been able to go some way towards answering this question.  Fortunately, Cambridge's Board of Research Studies kept a file for Price, which still exists in the University archives.  In addition, Sir Lawrence Bragg, who was a mentor to Price (and about whom I've blogged previously), kept a good deal of correspondence relating to him; this is now at the Royal Institution.

When Price was considering coming to Cambridge, the historian C. Northcote Parkinson, who was a colleague of his at the University of Malaya but had previously been a fellow of Emmanuel College, wrote to the Cambridge historian Herbert Butterfield.  (Parkinson is now best remembered as the inventor of Parkinson's Law, familiar to all students: work expands to fill the time available.)  Parkinson wrote:

A younger colleague of mine here, an applied mathematician with knowledge of physics, has been taking a great interest of late in the history of science...  I think his career may have suffered a little from the breadth of his interests...  His work latterly has been historical and he has been fortunate in having here a complete set of the Transactions of the Royal Society...

He tells me that he means to return to England in December on the general principle that if he does not return soon he will not return at all.  And he wants, if possible, to find a post as a lecturer in the history of science...  So I have taken the liberty of writing to you... to ask whether there is any opportunity going for Dr Price.

Sure enough, Price did return to England in December 1950.  He found a small house in Cambridge and from there wrote to A.R. (Rupert) Hall, who was the University's only lecturer in history of science, as well as part-time curator of the Whipple collection (which did not yet have a home).  Hall told Bragg about Price's letter:

I am not quite clear what he wants, but I shall be getting in touch with him immediately.  I know that he would like either a Research Fellowship or University post, but it seems to me that there is no chance of either for him at the moment here...

He would also like to work in Cambridge on a research grant, and I should be very pleased to see him here, and give him all the help I can...  But it does seem to depend rather on money from elsewhere.

Bragg suspected that there might be some pressing problem that made Price want to leave Singapore, and urged Hall to investigate.  Both Hall and Butterfield met with Price, who decided to submit an application to study for a PhD in early 1951.  Butterfield wrote to W. J. Sartain, the Secretary of the Board of Research Studies:

He definitely gave me the impression of a person moving to the History of Science as a result of a long-standing interest in the subject and a real internal urge.  I have had many applications from people wanting to try something on in the History of Science, but on the whole I am quite prepared to believe that Mr. Price is a person we ought to observe and take care of.

Finally, it's worth quoting Price's own words, in his application statement:

The subject of the research that I desire to pursue is "The History of Scientific Instrument Making"... Recent developments in the History of Science have clearly indicated the important role of changes in accuracy and design of instruments in the advancement of scientific knowledge...

My professional work as a physicist and my teaching experience have given me a rather wide acquaintance with the use and construction of scientific instruments, and it is this knowledge that I propose to use in the assessment of accuracy and design of early instruments.

So, contrary to Bragg's suspicions about professional problems, or fear about political upheavals in Malaya, it was a simple case of an unfulfilled passion.  (Of course there's certainly more to say about Price's implicit assumption that scientific knowledge and experience were the most important attributes in charting the apparent linear progress of the sciences.)  Price certainly showed his passion when he started his studies in Cambridge, wasting no time in making a name for himself.  He was, of course, to go on to become a successful academic and celebrated analyst of the growth of science.

King Arthur's Table goes on display

This post is cross-posted from the Connecting with Collections blog.

Last Friday was a proud day, as the object I re-discovered and am now researching went on display at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science.  Here it is in its new home:

The smaller model is the one I built (see my earlier posts for the full story).  We're displaying both models as an example of research in the Museum, and the work of the Connecting with Collections project.  The glass panel will soon be replaced by a larger one, to allow room for updates on the progress of my research.

This is the second week of the Cambridge Science Festival.  Last Saturday the Whipple Museum had a special opening for Science Saturday, and I gave three short talks about my research, and about medieval astronomy more generally.  The visitors seemed to enjoy getting to grips with the astrolabes!

If you're anywhere near Cambridge, why not go and check out King Arthur's Table?  You can even come back here and leave a comment!  The Museum is open Monday to Friday, 12.30-4.30 p.m, and it's completely free.  There are special tours and object handling sessions this afternoon, and on Friday afternoon - just drop in.

Lawrence Bragg and the Cavendish Laboratory

This post is cross-posted (with minor modifications) from the Connecting with Collections blog.

This month the Connecting with Collections interns are all posting on the theme of who?  In my last CwC post I raised some biographical issues and introduced my main subject, Derek de Solla Price.  So this time I'll write about a significant supporting character: Sir Lawrence Bragg.

Bragg is justly famous in the history of science: he remains the youngest ever winner of a Nobel Prize (at the age of 25 he shared the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics with his father William Henry Bragg, for their work developing X-ray crystallography).  The previous year he had been elected to a fellowship and lectureship at Trinity College, Cambridge.  During the First World War he developed techniques of sound ranging on the Western Front, and he succeeded Ernest Rutherford as Professor of Physics at Manchester University in 1919.  In 1937 he was appointed Director of the National Physical Laboratory, but had not even left Manchester when Rutherford, who had moved to Cambridge, died.  Against some misgivings from his father, Bragg replaced Rutherford again, this time as Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics.

It is as Cavendish Professor that he interests us.  J. A. Ratcliffe, head of the radio ionosphere research group at the Cavendish and a trusted lieutenant of Bragg, had this to say about him:

A Cavendish Professor plays at least four parts.  He must be a scientist, run the laboratory, uphold the interests of the department in the University, and act as an Elder Statesman of Science outside.  Bragg was pre-eminently the active scientist, and he ran the laboratory extremely well.  I do not think he played the part that some others have done in the University itself, and I am not sure that his part as Elder Statesman was quite as large as theirs would have been.  I found him extremely helpful and kindly, and above all things a real gentleman in every way.  He was quite open and straight-forward and ready to help anyone who had the good of the laboratory at heart.  I think there was an extremely good feeling in the laboratory during his time and all liked him.

That's a pretty glowing report for a boss to receive, and it is clear that Bragg excelled as a manager.  As soon as he came to the Cavendish he was thinking strategically about how it needed to change, and he explained his ideas in 1942 in Physicists After the War: Britain produced just one good physicist per million population and the demand for physicists exceeded supply.  In future, scientists would need to pay more attention to the technical applications of their research.  His ideas in this field influenced Derek Price, who would go on to develop the field of scientometrics - the statistical study of science.

He felt his role as a manager was to create the conditions for discoveries to take place.  The best conditions for "brain-waves", he felt, involved collaboration, discussion, and cross-fertilisation of ideas.  They did not arise in large, amorphous organisations, or come to isolated individuals.  So he restructured the Cavendish into research units, of 6-12 scientists, with a few assistants, one or two mechanics, and a workshop.  (It was apparently very important that the workshop be well supplied with junk, so that new ideas could be tried out quickly and at low cost.)  The rapid expansion of the Cavendish (from about 40 researchers before WWII to 160 by 1948) meant that some research groups had to be sub-divided.  Nevertheless, he promoted contact between groups, and encouraged senior researchers to continue teaching undergraduates, hoping that this would stimulate the flow of ideas.

The fact that each group had its own workshop (as well as a central workshop for the largest and most specialised tasks) meant that there was some duplication of functions.  Bragg felt that it was better to have extra machines and occasional underemployment of technicians, than to delay research because the workshops were too busy.

It was in one of these workshops that King Arthur's Table was built.  Derek Price had come to the Cavendish to put the archives in order and catalogue the Laboratory's collection of antique scientific instruments.  Bragg supported Price's application for an ICI Fellowship to fund his PhD studies on medieval astronomical instruments, and it seems likely that Bragg took advantage of the workshops' flexibility to commission them to produce a six-foot wood and brass equatorium - rather different from their usual work in cutting-edge physics!

These kinds of jobs were done without paperwork, so I am unlikely to be able to discover the precise circumstances of the equatorium's production.  But I am glad to have discovered more about a major contributor to the success of the Cavendish Laboratory, and a key figure in twentieth-century science.

Chronology and the politicisation of history teaching

Last Saturday I posted about the proposed new National Curriculum and its programme of study for History.  Yesterday's Sunday papers splashed big on the subject.

Among much hyperbole and inaccurate reporting (no, Observer, Key Stage 3 does not end at age 18), there was an excellent, balanced letter from the presidents of various historical societies.  It's worth reading in full but I'll quote a couple of passages here.

First, they note (as I did) the issue of relegating all pre-modern history to primary schools, where it won't be taught by specialist historians:

we regret that the construction of the Programme in a strictly chronological sequence from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3 ensures that many students will not be properly exposed to the exciting and intellectually demanding study of pre-modern history other than in the very earliest stages of their studies.

More fundamentally, they criticise the way the curriculum was drafted:

The contrast with the practice of the Conservative government of the late 1980s when it drafted the first national curriculum is striking. Then, a history Working group, including teachers, educational experts and academics, worked in tandem with the ministry of the day to produce first an interim report and than a final report in the midst of much public discussion.

The curriculum that resulted was widely supported across many professional and political divisions in the teaching and academic professions and by the general public. The current government was certainly right to feel that after many interim changes it was time for a fresh look. Unfortunately, it has not attempted to assemble the same kind of consensus and, as a result, it has produced a draft curriculum that it can be argued could still benefit from extensive discussion about how to ensure that it best serves both good practice and the public interest.

This, I'd suggest, is the result of a political climate that combines a distrust of the teaching profession with a desire to use history as a tool to promote national pride and placate the Conservative base.  As the letter-writers recognise, there is much in the new curriculum to welcome, but such policy-making motives are unlikely to benefit future generations of schoolchildren.

Matthew Arnold, Michael Faraday, and Michael Gove

To those who have managed to keep up with the astounding pace of policy changes flowing from the Department for Education in recent months, it will come as no surprise to see Secretary of State Michael Gove quoting Matthew Arnold in the introduction to his new National Curriculum.  The draft curriculum, which was released for consultation last week, begins with this as the first of two Aims:

The National Curriculum provides pupils with an introduction to the core knowledge that they need to be educated citizens. It introduces pupils to the best that has been thought and said; and helps engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.


You may (especially if you listened to the excellent "Value of Culture" series on BBC Radio 4 recently), recognise this as directly quoting Culture and Anarchy, by the Victorian poet, critic and schools inspector.  Arnold wrote:

The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world.

So, what is on this new Victorian's list of "the best that has been thought and said"?

Well, in History at least (the subject I taught for 5 years), it seems that the omission of Arnold's "in the world" is significant: the new curriculum focuses squarely on British - and usually English - history.  And we get a very clear idea of what bits of British history are to be taught: unlike the current curriculum, which is deliberately non-prescriptive, the draft programme of study (pages 166-171) is laid out in considerable detail, almost as chapter headings of the new textbooks which the publishing/examining conglomerates are sure to rush into print.  Unlike the present system, which does not insist on the study of any single person (Olaudah Equiano and William Wilberforce are named, but only in passing: "the work of people such as..."), the proposed new regime hopes to drum in knowledge of dozens of famous figures, from Alfred and Athelstan through "Clive of India" and Christopher Wren, to Attlee and Margaret Thatcher.

There's a curious dissonance in the publication of such a prescriptive curriculum by an education secretary who boasts of giving unprecedented freedom to schools.  (The level of prescriptive detail has been criticised even by one of Gove's strongest supporters, the economic historian and free-market apologist Niall Ferguson.)

Despite considerable media interest in the proposed curriculum, the most significant change has barely been mentioned.  The content for Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14) starts in the mid-17th century with "The Enlightenment in England" (a topic that, curiously from an Education Secretary born and raised in Aberdeen, includes the proud Scot Adam Smith).  This means that the earlier history of Britain, from the Stone Age through to the Glorious Revolution and 1707 Acts of Union, will be taught in primary schools (Key Stage 2, ages 7-11), where teachers are highly unlikely to be history specialists.

As a medievalist, I am worried by this.  But I do also recognise the sense in ending the repetition that currently exists between primary and secondary history (typical class discussion: "We already learned about Henry VIII."  "Oh, did you?"  "Yes. He was fat, and he had lots of wives.").  And I can see that focusing the last 3 years of compulsory History in on the last 3 centuries of British history provides a great opportunity to include some fascinating content.

Here, almost for the first time, is the history of science.  "Scientists such as Isaac Newton or Michael Faraday" get a mention in Key Stage 1 (ages 5-7; if there are any primary school teachers reading this, I'd love to know how you would approach this topic).  In Key Stage 2 we have "Chaucer and the revival of learning" (there's a whole blog post's worth of debate in that title).  And Key Stage 3 gives us Bacon, Newton, the Royal Society and the Industrial Revolution (Watt, Stephenson and Brunel are named).

I would like to imagine that this will lead to innovative cross-curricular collaboration, as young people study Newtonian mechanics, Swiftian satire, and Voltaire in the original French, all put into broader context in their History classes.  Or at least, for the history of science, kids could learn about discoveries and the development of ideas, anchored in understanding of the societies and conditions in which they arose, rather than as isolated eureka moments or landmarks on the way to our current state of scientific perfection.

But since the bulk of the curriculum comprises topics such as "Britain and her Empire" (note the gendered pronoun), "the conquest of Canada", and "the Indian Mutiny and the Great Game", it seems that Gove's aim, despite the modernising rhetoric in which it's sometimes clothed, is the same old glorification of Our Island Story (1905) - "the story of the people of Britain [which] tells how they grew to be a great people" (p. 4).  Yes, I still have a copy, and yes, it's a wonderful story - that's all its author ever intended it to be.  But if it's to be used as the basis for a 21st-century education it could do with some updating; and so, I fear, could Gove's ideas.

Actually, he could do with studying Arnold more carefully.  The passage I quoted above continues: "and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits".  Stock notions abound in the new history curriculum, but fresh and free thought?  That's one deficit the government hasn't made much progress in clearing.

Biographical musings

This post is cross-posted from the Connecting with Collections blog.

My current project is about King Arthur's Table.  I described this in a previous post.  As I've explained before, it stems from my PhD research into a 14th-century manuscript, The Equatorie of the Planetis.

Yesterday I was in London, looking in the archives of the Royal Institution for information about how and why King Arthur's Table was built according to the instructions in the manuscript.  I didn't find any direct evidence, but I discovered plenty about its creator, Derek Price, and his relationship with Lawrence Bragg, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory where KAT was made.

Derek de Solla Price with a model of the Antikythera Mechanism

I was struck by how many of my research projects have included a strong biographical element.  Maybe it's just the way my research interests push me, or perhaps there's always a biographical aspect to every history.  Either way, I do think personal stories add some human interest.

Price's story is an intriguing one.  I haven't got to the bottom of it, but it seems that for him, coming to Cambridge was a new beginning.  His background was far from prosperous: his father was a tailor and his mother a singer, and he studied for his first degree and doctorate at South West Essex Technical College (part of the University of London).  After taking his doctorate in physics he moved to teach applied mathemetics at the then University of Malaya in Singapore.  This was in 1947, the same year he got married.  But in 1950 something changed.  He decided to change subjects from mathematics and physics to the history of science, and began to make enquiries about studying or working at Cambridge.  This was to lead to his second PhD, for which he researched the Equatorie manuscript he had discovered in the library at Peterhouse.

The archives show that several people in Cambridge were curious, even suspicious, about his reasons for leaving Malaya.  There are hints that he did not fit easily into life in Cambridge.  It's tempting to suppose that this may have had something to do with his social or racial (Jewish) background, but there is no clear evidence on that point.  Either way, it is fascinating to see how, when he decided to make a new start in his career, he was prepared to work incredibly hard to make it happen.

As I've also come to Cambridge a little later in life, it's something I can identify with.  And of course it's been said that a biographer must be able to identify with their subject to some extent.  Is this the beginning of a beautiful biographical relationship?  We'll see.