COSME Steampunk exhibition

Saturday 13th February 2010
at the University Museum of the History of Science Broad Street, Oxford

The Exhibition ran from October 2009 to 21^st February 2010
for details see www.mhs.ox.ac.uk

About two weeks before the date, Jim Bennett, from the Museum of the History of Science in Broad Street, invited us to put on a display on Saturday, 13 February. They were running an ongoing exhibition called "Steam Punk". It was such a prestigious site with many visitors, we just couldn't turn it down. So Joy and I went to the museum to see Jim and took some photographs of previous displays. On one he picked out the Model of the Combe beam engine and asked if we could display that. The display would be on the top floor, up two long flights of stairs with no lift so only small models could be displayed as they had to be carried. Anyway, we agreed hoping that the Society would also agree.

I needed a theme and thought perhaps a bit of education on the history of steam would work, particularly as it had been agreed that we could have the Combe model. If you remember, on the cover of the Link a while back, Joy printed some illustrations of the development of steam power. We printed A4 copies of Hero's Aeolipile, Branca's implulse turbine, Savery's pump and Newcomen's engine together with descriptions and explanation of how they developed. We then displayed the next development, the beam engine, then Simon Mulford's Stuart 7a single, Brian Holland's and Doug Turner's Stuart Turner twin engines and the final development of the steam engine, David Turner's Triple.

To illustrate other uses of steam, we displayed, Len Bergamasco's Allchin traction engine, Savile Bradbury's steam hammer, Simon Mulford's Alice class Hunslet and John Whitfield's pinnace power plant. Another use of steam was illustrated by a small train on a length of Ivor White's track comprising of Joy's GWR i400, Ivor's mineral wagon and Martin Rant's GWR brake van. To show what goes into building a loco we displayed the sectioned boiler from the club house and David Price's part built Rob Roy with Doug Turner's Complete Rob Roy.

Finally, to illustrate the wide range of work carried out by members we displayed Len Bergamasco's Lyre Skeleton Clock. It was well worth putting on the display even though it was hard work. Denis transported the models and stand to the museum on Friday evening and we set everything up then. The Museum opened at 10 am and we eventually broke the stand down about 5.30 pm. There were over 1700 visitors to our gallery and over 2000 persons visited the Museum on the day. Denis arrived about 6 pm to transport everything home.

It was a very tiring day for everyone. Our thanks must go to all who helped set up and break down, those who helped steward the stand during the day and particularly to Denis and Simon for transport and help with carrying exhibits up and down the stairs.