The National Museum of Science and Industry: An Overview

Abstract

The National Museum of Science and Industry is one of world's leading museums devoted to history and public understanding of science, technology, and medicine. It owes its origin to spirit and drive of Prince Albert, profits of Great Exhibition of 1851 (held in nearby Hyde Park), and subsequent founding in 1857 of South Kensington Museum, an institution concerned with union of arts and sciences in pursuit of profitable industry. The collections that formed South Kensington Museum are best described as art collections and rest. Through time and donation the rest began to coalesce into science collections, which were immeasurably strengthened by acquisition in 1884 of Patent Office collection of patent models, documents, and artifacts. It is due to Bennet Woodcroft (1803-79), assistant to commissioners of patents, who was possessed of a strong sense of historical importance of artifacts that he saw around him, that such icons as locomotives Rocket and Puffing Billy and Arkwright's original spinning machinery were saved from oblivion. In 1885 now clearly distinct science collections were accorded title of Science Museum, and in 1909 art collections, now called Victoria and Albert Museum, were formally and administratively separated from Science Museum. By this date Science Museum was situated on west side of Exhibition Road and Victoria and