The Museum of Victorian Science, Glaisdale
For the last three days I had been on a short holiday/vacation to the historic town of Whitby on the east coast of England. My main reason for visiting was to see the Museum of Victorian Science in nearby Glaisdale. On arrival, and after paying, the owner ushered us into the hallway of his house and checked to make sure we weren’t about to either drop dead (pacemakers) or explode (mobile phones or blackberries). Then, he lead us into the museum/room itself.
To say that I was astonished would be to understate most cruelly – it was a single room, no larger than the floorsize of a decent car and yet it was from floor to ceiling covered in contraptions and thingumajigs of brass, glass and wood. In some places the shelves groaned under such things stacked three deep, and the owner (Mr Swift) had constructed ingenous temporary shelves that were moved from place to place to allow the shuffling of things of interest. And oh – there was so much of interest! The majority of the two hour talk involved electrostatic contraptions powered one of his handsome Wimshurst machines that delighted us with handcranked four-inch sparks – this provided the magical, Victorian, lightning-power for display pieces that spun, flexed, swung and rolled with seemingly unnatural grace.
Beyond that there was the history of the X-Ray (and I learned how to pronounce Röntgen, finally), the research that went into discovering what eventually turned out to be the electron, lots of fun with Radium, a Jacobs Ladder and more besides – all demonstrated with displays old or remade by the owner himself.
Speaking of the owner, he’s such a very knowledgable man and gloriously demonstrates so much that Steampunk adores – an ex-horologist and retired educational science technician with a love for brass and wood and the wonderful drama of Victorian science and a deep feeling of dismay at the modern watering down of science education. He makes many of the demonstration models himself with a lathe and some cunning.
I’d recommend a visit most highly to anyone who finds themselves in the area, and should you do so please mention Steampunk – it would be very nice to let him know there are quite a few people who like Victorian science almost as much as he does!