Built on shaky foundations? Rethinking the history of seismology in Britain through the collections of the Science Museum, 1876–1939

This thesis uses the biographies of seismological instruments in the collections of London’s Science Museum to enhance, challenge, and revise accounts of seismology in Britain between 1876 and 1939. In particular, I use the lives of objects both before and after they entered the Museum as tools for rethinking the role of British seismologist John Milne, often hailed as a ‘founding father’ of seismology.

Scholars have long argued that the development and use of novel instruments for observing earthquake motion transformed seismology in the decades around 1900. It is for his contributions to these new instrumental techniques that Milne has been most celebrated. Yet the stories of actual instruments have hitherto featured little in existing accounts. I address this deficiency, using surviving instruments in the Museum’s collection as the basis for a materially-grounded account of the history of seismology in this period. Since Milne’s prolific written oeuvre dominates published primary source material, the objects, and the archival repositories to which they point, provide valuable alternative viewpoints from which to assess his contributions.

The Science Museum’s seismological holdings are unusually rich—suggesting their potential as source material—and I first explore the factors that shaped the collection. Of central importance was the Museum’s active role in promoting the new field of geophysics in the early twentieth century.

Case studies foregrounding the lives of objects in the collection—selected on the basis of their relation to, and apparent disruption of, conventional accounts—expose the significance of individuals, institutions and sites that have traditionally been marginalised. They reveal that Milne’s posthumous legacy owed much to the campaigns of Britain’s seismological community seeking to safeguard projects to which Milne had provided labour and, crucially, funds. They also show that the Museum was complicit in perpetuating a legacy for Milne through its collections and displays.