Royal Victoria Gallery for the Encouragement of Practical Science
The Royal Victoria Gallery for the Encouragement of Practical Science was an adult education institution and exhibition gallery in Victorian Manchester, a commercial enterprise intended to educate the general public about science and its industrial applications.
Origins
During the 1830s, the
- Provide a collection of scientific apparatus "combining philosophical instruction and general entertainment";
- Present demonstrations of elementary physical principles;
- Exhibit progress in the application of science to industry;
- Establish awards to foster learning and invention; and
- Appeal to young people.
Annual subscriptions were to be offered at one
The Gallery
The Gallery opened in June 1840 in the Exchange Dining Room. The exhibition comprised artistic and scientific exhibits including:[1]
- Dial weighing machines;[1]
- Mathematical instruments designed by William Read;[1]
- Fossils excavated during the construction of the Manchester and Leeds Railway;[1]
- A model of Wheatstone and Cooke's electric telegraph;[1]
- Electromagnets;[1]
- A ball and socket Sharp, Roberts and Company;[1]
- Surface plates from Whitworth & Co.;[1]
- A "spectacular" leaving Cyprus.[2]
The Gallery planned lectures and demonstrations and the collection of a library was started.[1]
In February 1841, Sturgeon promoted James Prescott Joule's first public lecture at the Gallery and the directors were sanguine about the Gallery's prospects. However, ultimately, there proved to be insufficient local people willing to pay the admission fee and the Gallery closed in 1842.[1] Joule observed:
... the indifference to pursuits of an elevated character which too frequently marks wealthy trading communities destroyed this, as it has many other useful institutions.
—Manchester Memoirs2nd series, 14 (1857) 83
Aftermath
The Gallery's collections were transferred, some sold, some donated, to the Royal Manchester Institution. Sturgeon attempted to revive the concept in the Manchester Institute of Natural and Experimental Science but it failed a shortly after it opened.[1]
The Gallery had been one of several similar institutions established in the 1830s and 1840s, all of which quickly closed. It has been suggested that their promoters, such as Sturgeon, had overrated the public's appetite for science and its willingness to pay. Further, "electricians" such as Sturgeon had alienated themselves from the increasingly professionalised scientific establishment represented by the Royal Society and the Royal Institution, denying themselves the experience and expertise in managing scientific enterprises.[3]
References
Bibliography
- Kargon, R. H. (1977). Science in Victorian Manchester: Enterprise and Expertise. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-1969-5.
- Morus, I. R. (1993). "Currents from the underworld: electricity and the technology of display in early Victorian England". Isis. 84: 50–69. doi:10.1086/356373.
- Frankenstein's Children: Electricity, Exhibition and Experiment in Early-Nineteenth-Century London. Princeton University Press. 1998. ISBN 0-691-05952-7.