At home with science and technology
Geffrye Museum
You might not associate this museum with science since its rooms diplay the changing style of the English homes from 1600 to the present day. However a visit to the museum shows how much science and technology have shaped our daily home lives.
In the series of living rooms you can see the many changes in the materials used to make furniture and to decorate walls. Evolving technolgies have affected the means we use to try to keep warm and our sources of music and other entertainment over the years.
The Stuart room covers a period (1660 - 1685) when science was fashionable. The room has a cabinet to house a collection of specimens and curiosities some of which are on display. This was the period when the Royal Society was founded by a group including Christopher Wren and Robert Boyle.
Taste in plants and design has changed over the centuries too as illustrated in the museum gardens. Botanical adventurers in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries brought thousands of new species to the UK for gardeners to cultivate and enjoy. Horticulturists have used their technical skills to breed new varieties.
Submitted by: Andrew Hunt, 21 January 2007
