When the V&A and Science Museum Were One
Tim Boon and Bill Sherman

• Wednesday 7 June 2017, 7.40PM to 8.30pm
• Free admission
  Booking required
• RCH/037, Ron Cooke Hub, University of York (map|getting to campus)
• Wheelchair acessible

Event details

Join Bill Sherman from the V&A and Tim Boon from the Science Museum, London to dive into the amazing origins of South Kensington’s great museums, which mixed science, art, and much else besides in ways that are inspiring today’s curators.

Prince Albert, Henry Cole, and the other Victorian founders of South Kensington Museum had great ambitions for a new centre of learning that would combine museums, libraries, colleges and places to talk. Attractions included museums for animal products and education alongside the departments of art and science that later morphed into today’s museums.

Bill and Tim will explain how, provocatively for current perceptions of art-science distinctions, many subjects including music and textiles were curated in several of the museums. Understanding how the museums’ treatment of such subjects changed over the museums’ first 50 years can tell us much not just about the history of museums, but about science and art too.

About the speakers

Professor Bill Sherman became the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Director of Research and Collections in April 2016 after two years as the V&A’s Head of Research. He moved to the Museum from the University of York, where he was founding director of the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies and where he remains an Honorary Professor. Bill has overall responsibility for the Collections Division - which includes curation, conservation, collections management and research - and he is leading the development of the V&A Research Institute (VARI).

Best known for his pioneering work on the history of reading, Bill has published widely on the material and visual culture of books and the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Bill received his BA from Columbia and his MPhil and PhD from Cambridge. He has held visiting positions at Caltech, Queen Mary (University of London) and Keio University (Tokyo), and has served on a range of boards, trusts and councils on both sides of the Atlantic.

Dr Tim Boon is Head of Research and Public History at the Science Museum, London. He is a historian and his published research - two books and more than 25 papers - is mainly concerned with the history of science in documentary films, television, museums and, latterly, music.

Arising from his historical research and his curatorial practice, he has developed strong interests in the public history of science, technology, engineering and medicine. He has acted as Principal or Co-Investigator on several research projects on behalf of the Museum. More broadly, he is responsible for developing the Museum’s research and public history programme, and has oversight of the Science Museums and Archives Collaborative Doctoral Partnership.

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