UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies

Brother!

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Natural history museums are much abused these days, depicted as musty, dusty old places where nothing interesting is found. Hardly. Look past the technical and analytical. Let your imagination wonder. This rhea, an emu-sized flightless bird living in South America, sits quietly near the entrance of the Cole Museum of Zoology (University of Reading). 

The week before visiting this museum, I had been working on a project making puppets for a show about animals and evolution. As I came across this display, it seemed to me this bird had just raised its head from pecking at the ground and was startled at seeing someone they already knew.

Joe Cain, photographer 

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I’m no gardener. In truth, I can’t even grow mould. My wife is the opposite. She bans me from helping in the garden.

At best, I can identify a dozen plants by sight. All relate to history of biology. Linnaea borealis was the man’s signature flower. Tradescentia and Iris were used in the 1930s to study speciation. Flax and lavender connect to economic botany; Echinacea, to medicine. Then, I start to buckle.

Add the evening primrose, Oenothera (pictured here). After 1900, this plant became the model for a distinct and highly successful alternative theory of evolution. For about a decade, that theory dominated evolutionary biology. Momentarily, it knocked Darwin off his pedestal.

Oenothera was the brainchild of Dutch biologist, Hugo DeVries. When collecting specimens in the field, DeVries occasionally noticed individual plants sharply different from the rest. Back in his experimental garden, these individuals bred true. They also seemed different enough to count as new varieties, maybe even new species.

Around Oenothera, DeVries talked of “mutation” as the heart of evolution. He tied this to the revival of Mendel and his big-A, little-a algebra for inheritance. DeVries’s ideas became a rallying point around which “Mendelians” and “experimental evolutionists” clustered. Forget the trivial differences between individuals. Darwin was wrong. What really happens is the hereditary material occasionally spins out major changes in form – mutations – and these mutants present natural selection with sharp differences. Some make it. Some don’t. Those that do help evolution instantly leap forward – one species to the next. Sceptics of these ideas were shown Oenothera.

Mutation theory was a hit. It solved persistent problems in Darwinian evolution: the perception that gaps existed in evolutionary transitions, or the worry that while natural selection could destroy, it couldn’t create. Mutation theory’s experimental wrapping also appealed to the rising fashion in biology for laboratories and decisive tests.

When I see Oenothera, I think about DeVries and the mutation theory. I think about the competition between Mendelians and Darwinians just after 1900. I use this photograph of Oenothera to raise the subject in courses: mutation theory, experimental evolution, and Darwin’s most serious rival. “Maybe you’ve seen this in a garden sometime?”

But there’s a twist. I took this photograph while leading a tour to Darwin’s home, Down House. It’s in his garden. His glasshouse is in the background. I imagine an unsuspecting modern gardener added it to decorate this little corner of their patch. Little did they know.

Yes, little did they know. This image gives me an excuse to preach a little to the students in my first-year course. Want to show you know your stuff? Take your parents to Down House. Make them a picnic. Talk about Darwin, his family, and the artefacts in his study. As you walk past the glasshouse, mention orchids and carnivorous plants. Then, casually point to Oenothera and smile. Knowledge is a precious commodity. Never be afraid to show you have some of it in the bank.

Joe Cain, photographer

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The Natural History Museum in South Kensington is a marvel of Victorian architecture. A true cathedral to science. It’s easy to find corners where is seems more a place for worship than a place for science. That was deliberate, for the two went hand-in-hand (and still very much do!). This corner beautifully reflects that connection.

Joe Cain, photograhper

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To build a better understanding of Victorian transport networks, I’ve walked a good many canals. Following Regent’s Canal from the Paddington Basin to the Islington Tunnel, I found this lone narrow boat breaking the still water of a quiet Sunday morning.

Joe Cain, photographer

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The London Zoo’s aquarium has a fascinating history. In a study of its efforts to balance display, research, and entertainment in that space, my wife and I made several site visits. On one, we watched this sea star move slowly across the whole of the display. It was a brilliant demonstration of tube feet at work.

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Tracing the influence of Ruskin’s “Nature of Gothic,” I undertook a study of gothic revival in Victorian architecture. One outstanding example is the Prince Consort National Memorial (commonly, the Albert Memorial) in Kensington Gardens, London. Designed by George Gilbert Scott, it opened in 1872. Until this study, I did not appreciate its attempt at Gesamtkunstwerk, or a ‘total work’ of art, depicting the full breadth of Albert’s influence over British culture and empire. The detail of its sculpture is fascinating in its intricacy, as in the case of ‘Africa’ astride her camel.

Joe Cain, photograhper

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No, it’s not the African savannah. In 1936 the Akeley Hall of African Mammals opened at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, with 36 dioramas. Carl Akeley was an explorer, conservationist, taxidermist, and sculptor. He built museum dioramas to exacting scientific and artistic standards. Every blade of grass. Every colour in the sky. Every twitch of every muscle was reconstructed exactly as he had observed in nature. In an age when wildlife photography and film flood our senses, these dioramas still stop visitors in their tracks. Somehow, Akeley manages to communicate as well as simply convey. The curiosity of these Gemsboks is nothing short of extraordinary. Only by looking to one side of this display are you reminded that the savannah is a distant memory and not under your feet.

Joe Cain, photograhper

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Walk in Battersea Park today, and you find a second statue to the famous ‘little brown dog’. This commemorates anti-vivisectionist campaigns whose attention focused on UCL circa 1900. This photograph has a special detail: the yellow flower at the dog’s feet. When I visit this spot, I always see new flowers on the plinth. Intimate, personal tributes. These give me pause. I think about symbolism and the social function of memorials. About how we might better understand the ways people engage and respond to science. About what it is today we should be protesting and raising memorials to honour. Memory is an ever-so powerful force. I use this photograph when teaching about the rise of experimentation and the corresponding rise of anti-vivisection. Action provoking reaction. ‘Twas ever thus.

Joe Cain, photographer

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Nero the lion was a favourite of George Wombwell (1777-1850), famous British ‘menagerist’. It’s too much to say Wombwell invented the travelling circus, but he certainly developed the idea into a successful enterprise. It’s no accident Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie continued well into the twentieth century. When Wombwell died, he was buried in a fashionable corner of Highgate (West) Cemetery. This statue of Nero rests on his memorial. The peaceful air of Nero’s sleep provokes a deep sense of calm. For a historian of natural history, zoos, and animal-human interactions, this is a poignant image. It speaks about our evolving styles of animal display, the business side of natural history and exotica, the rise of mass entertainments, and the buried history of science within itinerant spaces. 

Joe Cain, photographer

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This photograph won the British Society for the History of Science’s OEC Image Prize for 2007.

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Whitchurch Silk Mill, on the River Test in Hampshire, was built in 1800. These bobbins hold silk thread used at the mill. I use this image to integrate historical thinking. Because these are silk threads, this image relates to agriculture as an science-driven industry. Stretch a bit, and it connects to ideas of manufacture and machines, export economies and globalisation, competition between biological and chemical dye industries, the promotion of efficiency by scientists and engineers, and shifting patterns of work. A simple image is all we need to start talking about global histories of commodities and connections. We must think analytically about commonplace items in our lives: beans come from Zambia, lamb from New Zealand or Wales, and chocolate where does chocolate come from? More importantly, why is it so hard to figure that out?

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The Whitchurch Silk Mill, on the River Test in Hampshire, was built in 1800. These bobbins hold silk thread for weaving at the mill.

I love this photograph’s colour. And I adore its versatility. I use it as a recurring image in my survey course. From it, I can launch into topics far and wide. There are direct connections to industrialisation and the British shift to manufacture. Stretch a bit, and this photo connects to ideas of export economies and globalisation, competition between biological and chemical dye industries, shipping and telecommunications, the role of scientists and engineers in studies of efficiency, and shifting patterns of work. Today, it’s an instance of heritage tourism and a more romantic vision of craftsmanship.

As a photograph of silk threads, this image lets me talk about agriculture as an industry – one firmly intertwined with science. When I’m teaching, I can pivot from agriculture to transport of biological commodities and specimens – connecting to Alfred Crosby’s ‘Columbian Exchange’ and its profound implications. Efforts to produce silk at home gets me to Joseph Banks and Kew Gardens, then a pivot again, this time to tea and tobacco. Then it’s clear sailing through the rest of the course: exploration, empire, and the extraction.

It’s important to me that students learn to think analytically about the most commonplace items in their lives. They ought to notice when their beans come from Zambia, their lamb from New Zealand versus Wales, and their chocolate … where does chocolate come from? More importantly, why is it so hard to figure that out?

A few colourful silk threads prove to be an ideal device for continuity along a line of otherwise disconnected themes. From so simple a beginning, a few threads can weave tapestries both rich and beautiful.

Joe Cain, photographer

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Crystal Palace is famous for its dinosaurs, created in 1854 as an attraction for the famous pleasure park. But the dinosaurs are only part of the geological illustrations. Over 20 life-sized animal sculptures were created. More were planned, but overspending brought an end to the programme. Every year, I lead student tours of the park to show this most curious attempt at “visual education”: seeing was learning to these Victorian illusionists. This teleosaur is one of the statues that takes my breath away. 155 years old, it’s as alive today as it was when the park opened. Those teeth mesmerise. The jaw is clenched. Those eyes are the gaze of a predator. This is as real as it gets.

Joe Cain, photographer