Instruments and relics: The history and use of the Royal Society’s object collections c.1850–1950

Abstract

Despite the age and prestige of the Royal Society of London, the history of its collections of scientific instruments and apparatus has largely been one of accidental accumulation and neglect. This article tracks their movements and the processes by which objects came to be recognized as possessing value beyond reuse or sale. From at least the mid-nineteenth century, the few surviving objects with links to the society’s early history and its most illustrious Fellows came to be termed ‘relics’, were treated with suitable reverence, put on display and made part of the society’s public self-presentation. If the more quotidian objects survived into the later 1800s, when their potential as objects for collection, research, display, reproduction and loan began to be appreciated, they are likely to have survived to the present day.