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Science Museum, London

The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019.[2]

"The Science Museum" redirects here. For other museums of this name, see Science Museum (disambiguation). For the type of museum, see Science museum.

Established

  • 1857 (1857)
  • (separate status formalised 1909)

51°29′51″N 0°10′29″W / 51.49750°N 0.17472°W / 51.49750; -0.17472

2,956,886 (2023)[1]

Ian Blatchford

www.sciencemuseum.org.uk

Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Science Museum does not charge visitors for admission, although visitors are requested to make a donation if they are able. Temporary exhibitions may incur an admission fee.


It is one of the five museums in the Science Museum Group.

Mission to Mercury: Bepi Columbo

[19]

Driverless: Who's in control? (exhibition ended January 2021)

[20]

Codebreaker, on the life of (2012–2013).[23]

Alan Turing

Unlocking Lovelock, which explored the archive of (ended 2015).[24]

James Lovelock

Cosmonauts: Birth of Space Age (ended 2016).

[25]

Wounded – Conflict, Casualties and Care (2016–2018) – timed to commemorated the centenary of the Battle of the Somme; explored the development of medical treatment for wounded soldiers during the First World War.

[26]

Robots (ended 2017).

[27]

The Sun: Living with our Star (ended 2019).

[28]

The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution (ended 2019).

[29]

Top Secret: From Cyphers to Cyber Security (ended 2020, closed at the on 31 August 2021).[30]

Science and Industry Museum

Art of Innovation – from Enlightenment to Dark Matter (2019–2020) – explored the interaction between science, the arts and society; included artworks by Boccioni, Constable, Hepworth, Hockney, Lowry and Turner.

[31]

Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination (2022–2023)

[32]

The Science Box contemporary science series toured various venues in the UK and Europe in the 1990s and from 1995 The Science of Sport appeared in various incarnations and venues around the World. In 2005 The Science Museum teamed up with Fleming Media to set up The Science of... to develop and tour exhibitions including The Science of Aliens, The Science of Spying[34] and The Science of Survival.[35]

[33]

In 2008, The Science of Survival exhibition opened to the public and allowed visitors to explore what the world might be like in 2050 and how humankind will meet the challenges of shortages.

climate change and energy

In 2014 the museum launched the family science Energy Show, which toured the country.

[36]

The same year it began a new programme of touring exhibitions which opened with Collider: Step inside the world's greatest experiment to much critical acclaim. The exhibition takes visitors behind the scenes at CERN and explores the science and engineering behind the discovery of the Higgs Boson. The exhibition toured until early 2017.

Media Space exhibitions also go on tour, notably Only in England which displays works by the photographers Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr.

The museum has some dedicated spaces for temporary exhibitions (both free and paid-for) and displays, on Level -1 (Basement Gallery), Level 0 (inside the Exploring Space Gallery and Tomorrow's World), Level 1 (Special Exhibition Gallery 1) and Level 2 (Special Exhibition Gallery 2 and The Studio). Most of these travel to other Science Museum Group sites, as well as nationally and internationally.


Past exhibitions have included:

Events[edit]

Astronights for Children[edit]

The Science Museum organises Astronights, "all-night extravaganza with a scientific twist". Up to 380 children aged between 7 and 11, accompanied by adults, are invited to spend an evening performing fun "science based" activities and then spend the night sleeping in the museum galleries amongst the exhibits. In the morning, they're woken to breakfast and more science, watching a show before the end of the event.[37]

'Lates' for Adults[edit]

On the evening of the last Wednesday of every month (except December) the museum organises an adults only evening with up to 30 events, from lectures to silent discos. Previous Lates have seen conversations with the actress activist Lily Cole[38] and Biorevolutions with the Francis Crick Institute which attracted around 7000 people, mostly under the age of 35.[39]

Cancellation of James D. Watson talk[edit]

In October 2007, the Science Museum cancelled a talk by the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, James D. Watson, because he claimed that IQ test results showed black people to have lower intelligence than white people. The decision was criticised by some scientists, including Richard Dawkins,[40] but supported by other scientists, including Steven Rose.[41]

The Children's Gallery – 1931–1995 Located in the basement, it was replaced by the under fives area called The Garden.

[42]

Agriculture – 1951–2017 Located on the first floor, it looked at the history and future of farming in the 20th century. It featured model dioramas and object displays. It was replaced by Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries in 2019.

[43]

Shipping – 1963–2012. Located on the second floor, its contents were 3D scanned and made available online. It was replaced by Information Age.* * Land Transport – 1967–1996[45] Located on the ground floor, it displayed vehicles and objects associated with transport on land, including rail and road. It was replaced by the Making the Modern World gallery in 2000.

[44]

Glimpses of Medical History – 1981–2015 Located on the fourth floor, it contained reconstructions and dioramas of the history of practised medicine. It was not replaced, but subsumed into Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries which opened on the museum's first floor in November 2019.

[46]

Science and the Art of Medicine – 1981–2015 Located on the fifth floor, which featured exhibits of medical instruments and practices from ancient days and from many countries. It was not replaced, but subsumed into Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries which opened on the museum's first floor in November 2019.

[46]

Launchpad – 1986–2015 Originally opening on the ground floor, in 1989 it moved to the first floor replacing Textiles. Then in 2000 to the basement of the newly built Wellcome Wing. In 2007, it moved to its final location on the third floor, replacing the George III gallery.[47] It was replaced by Wonderlab in 2016.[48]

[42]

Challenge of Materials – 1997–2019 Located on the first floor, explored the diversity and properties of materials. It was designed by WilkinsonEyre and featured an exhibit Materials House by Thomas Heatherwick.[50]

[49]

Cosmos and Culture – 2009–2017[52] Located on the first floor, it featured astronomical objects showing the study of the night sky. It was replaced by Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries in 2019.

[51]

Atmosphere – 2010–2022.[54] The Atmosphere gallery explored the science of climate.

[53]

Engineer your Future – 2014–2023. The Engineer your Future gallery explored whether you have the problem solving and team working skills to succeed in a career in engineering.

[55]

The Secret Life of the Home – 1995–2024. The The Secret Life of the Home showed the development of household appliances mostly from the late 19th and early 20th century, although some were earlier. This gallery closed permanently on 2 June 2024.

[56]

The museum has undergone many changes in its history with older galleries being replaced by new ones.

Storage, library and archives[edit]

Blythe House, 1979–2019, the museum's former storage facility in West Kensington, while not a gallery, it offered tours of the collections housed there.[57] Objects formerly housed there are being transferred to the National Collections Centre, at the Science Museum Wroughton, in Wiltshire.[58]


The Science Museum has a dedicated library, and until the 1960s was Britain's National Library for Science, Medicine and Technology. It holds runs of periodicals, early books and manuscripts, and is used by scholars worldwide. It was, for a number of years, run in conjunction with the library of Imperial College, but in 2007 the library was divided over two sites. Histories of science and biographies of scientists were kept at the Imperial College Library until February 2014 when the arrangement was terminated, the shelves were cleared and the books and journals shipped out, joining the rest of the collection, which includes original scientific works and archives at the National Collections Centre.


Dana Research Centre and Library previously an event space and cafe, reopened in its current form in 2015. Open to researchers and members of the public, it allows free access to almost 7,000 volumes, which can be consulted on site.

CB (1857–1873)

Henry Cole

Sir KCB KCMG CIE (1873–1893)

Philip Cunliffe-Owen

The directors of the South Kensington Museum were:


The directors of the Science Museum have been:


The following have been head/director of the Science Museum in London, not including its satellite museums:


The following have been directors of the National Museum of Science and Industry, (since April 2012 renamed the Science Museum Group) which oversees the Science Museum and other related museums, from 2002:

Edit this at Wikidata

Official website

– architecture and history of the Science Museum

Albertopolis: Science Museum

(SMG) – a group of British museums that includes the Science Museum

sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk

Archived 2 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine

Mapping the World's Science Museums from Nature Publishing Group's team blog