History of Science Archives | Professor Joe Cain

What’s This? It’s Erasmus Darwin’s Sitting Chair

You never know what you’ll find searching through storage spaces at UCL. I previously wrote about some medical data cards re-discovered. Last year, I was invited to help sort through some historical materials in storage managed […]

Film Night at the Grant Museum, ten years

For about 10 years, I was part of a collaborative project, “Film Night at the Grant Museum”. Partners included Jack Ashby, Mark Carnall, and Dean Veall. Jack promoted the films as “On the Big Screen” events. Each quarter, […]

Robert Edmond Grant’s 1829 Summer Lectures Announced

When University College London (then, University of London) chose its first set of academics, Professor Robert Edmond Grant (1793-1874) was elected to the post of Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in 1827. He delivered […]

Great Marlborough Street, London in 1837 map

Darwin in London – Great Marlborough Street and Upper Gower Street

Let’s straighten out some confusions about where Charles Darwin and his family lived in London before they moved to Down House in Downe, a village in Kent. Down House (1842 onwards) Charles and Emma Darwin moved into Down […]

Sample Medical Card for Croydon Schoolboys 1920s-1930s

Medical Cards for Croydon Schoolchildren 1920s-1930s

Historians must make more – and more creative – use of AI technologies for data analysis as well as for routine task of data sorting and transcription. To create a simple example, I have put […]

John Martin's 1837 The Country of the Iguanodon

The Country of the Iguanodon, by Gideon Mantell – Two Versions

“The Country of the Iguanodon” is Gideon Mantell’s attempt to imagine the paleoecology of dinosaurs. Transcripts of 1838 and 1851 descriptions.

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Gideon Mantell (1851) Petrifactions and Their Teaching, frontispiece, Notoris mantelli

Gideon Mantell’s 1851 Guide to Fossils at British Museum

Gideon Mantell’s 1851 guide to fossils at British Museum, including Iguanodon, Megalosaurus, Hylaeosaurus, marine reptiles, and more.

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Illustration of "ring species" concept, or Rassenkreis

Society for the Study of Speciation: Bibliographic Analysis using LLM

I provide data for an LLM-based analysis of the short-lived Society for the Study of Speciation (SSS), organised by Alfred Emerson, through three documents.

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Bernissart Iguanodons in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels

The Dinosaur Gallery in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (Brussels Museum of Natural History) includes the famous Bernissart Iguanodons. This consists of thirty complete or nearly complete skeletons excavated from an underground coal […]

Great Exhibition (The Industry of All Nations) or Crystal Palace 1851 from Art-Journal

History of the Great Exhibition (1851) from The Art-Journal Illustrated Catalogue

London in 1851 was site of the Great Exhibition. Formally, it was titled, “The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations“. The press focused attention on the giant glass house containing the […]