Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
cated chemist who had joined the museum in 1921 when he was taken on
to help with the preparations for the new gallery and who became an As-
sistant Keeper in 1930. Eight years later, he became the Keeper of De-
partment IV (chemistry, photography, optics, astronomy, and mathemat-
ics, which became chemistry and photography in 1949 [Who Was Who
1991]). The museum was closed to the public between September 1939
and February 1946, except for a brief period in the spring (February-
June) 1940.
Chemistry increased in importance following the appointment of
Frank Sherwood Taylor as director in 1950. Taylor died in office after
serving for only six years. He was in conflict with his Keepers who op-
posed his publications on science and religion, but he promoted the ca-
reer of Frank Greenaway, an Oxford-trained chemist who had joined the
museum as an Assistant Keeper in 1949. Greenaway, as the first chemis-
try curator to be an active historian of chemistry, was to have a decisive
influence on the presentation and development of chemistry at the Sci-
ence Museum in the 1960s and 1970s. The Chemistry and Industrial Col-
lections had mostly been moved into store during World War II. The task
of putting the collections back on display occupied the Chemistry De-
partment for ten years. Chemistry returned to Gallery 66 on the third
floor in 1952. The redisplay of Industrial Chemistry in Gallery 46 on the
second floor took place very slowly with considerable input and some
financial support from industry. The Industrial Chemistry gallery was
still only partly completed in 1957 (Science Museum Guides 1952, 1953,
1957). Barclay was succeeded as Keeper of Chemistry and Photography
in 1959 by Stanley Janson, a Cambridge-trained chemist who worked on
the industrial chemistry collections and especially glass technology (Sci-
ence Museum 1970).
After building the new chemistry and industrial chemistry galleries on
the second floor of the East Block in 1963-4, Greenaway became Keeper
of Chemistry in 1967 while Janson, who retired two years later, became
Keeper of Astronomy and Geophysics. Greenaway built up a team of
young enthusiastic and knowledgeable curators - including Robert
Anderson, Derek Robinson, and Ann Newmark - who were responsible
for the revamping of the chemistry and industrial chemistry galleries in
1977. Greenaway was succeeded in 1980 by Robert Anderson, who left
