Professor Joe Cain

UCL Galton Lecture Theatre - plaque on door - ProfJoeCain

Francis Galton and Building Names at UCL

In October 2014, I proposed to UCL that it change the name of a lecture theatre named for Francis Galton. That letter is here.

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What are office hours? Best ways to meet your tutor

This is more-or-less a stairwell conversation recently had about the nature of academic office hours or meet-the-tutor drop-in appointments for students at the university. “Office hours” are a simple idea. Some people call them “drop-in […]

Charles Darwin Blue Plaque on Gower Street London WC1 | ProfJoeCain

Darwin in London

During research concerning Charles Darwin and Emma Darwin’s life at number 12 Upper Gower Street, London, I identified several errors and vagaries in biographical material found in standard reference works. This note communicates corrections and […]

HPSC0081 Science in the Nineteenth Century

The nineteenth century saw the origin of much of what we might identify as “modern” scientific and technological research and practice. Laboratories, factories explorations, empires – all had scientific significance and all were paramount in […]

George Gaylord Simpson, 1956 (courtesy American Philosophical Society Library).

George Gaylord Simpson’s “Night Thoughts on Leaving the American Museum of Natural History”

George Gaylord Simpson (1902-1984) was a leader in twentieth century vertebrate palaeontology, and he contributed to making the American Museum of Natural History a powerhouse in the field. In 1959, Simpson left his job at […]

HPSC0041 Dissertation

Undergraduates in UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) undertake final year projects resulting in dissertations or research reports. Students undertake a research project largely of their own design in the field of science […]

HPSC0097 Research Project

Postgraduate taught students in UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) undertake summer research projects resulting in dissertations or research reports. Professor Joe Cain supervises some students in this work, as do all academic […]

The anatomist overtaken by the watch carrying off Miss Watts in a hamper, caricature by William Austin, 1773

London’s Body-Snatching Business of the Resurrection Men Exposed, 1825

In Britain, body-snatching was a cloak-and-dagger business. It also was corrupt. When her husband was arrested, tried, and executed for crimes associated with body-snatching, Ann Millard sought revenge. To her mind, local officials were complicit […]

Euston Road at corner of former Euston Grove, showing bus entrance to Euston Station, 2013.

Euston Grove – History of a London Street NW1

Today, Euston Grove, London NW1 is little more than a roundabout for buses outside Euston Rail Station. Its most noticable feature is Reginald Wynn Owen’s arresting memorial to railway men and women lost in war. One […]

Neo-classical screen at London Terminus at Euston Grove, from Bourne (1839) Drawings of the London and Birmingham Railway (London: Ackermann and Co.).

Bourne’s Drawings of the London and Birmingham Railway (1839)

John Cooke Bourne’s lithograph of Euston Arch and the neo-classical screen in from of the Euston Grove terminus for the railway was published among his Drawings of the London and Birmingham Railway (1839) (British Library […]