President Sally Horrocks writes:

As we look forward to the new year the BSHS can look back on a successful 2011.  For many of you the Annual Conference in Exeter will have been the highlight, but plenty more has been happening elsewhere.

The major result of all this effort has been the launch of the Society’s new website, with many new features including a Twitter feed.  The online Travel Guide has continued to expand, receiving over 7000 hits in July (a not-anomalous month, incidentally!).  Do take a look at www.bshs.org.uk, and let us know what you like – and what else you would like.  More non-British contributions to the Travel Guide are especially welcome.

I’m glad to say that despite our digital achievements, the book is still very much alive and cherished at the BSHS, with two major developments on paper.  First, we were delighted to award the 2011 Dingle Prize to Patricia Fara for her book, Science: A Four Thousand Year History.  And second, we are equally delighted to announce the publication of the latest BSHS monograph, Emily Steel’s He Is No Loss, which recounts the story of the Beagle’s original naturalist and surgeon, Robert McCormick, and includes the first ever published transcript of his diary from the voyage.  Plans are afoot for a monograph a year from hereon.  The BSHS is proud to be taking a lead in making history of science research public in a period of increasing risk-aversion amongst publishers.

Our regular publication Viewpoint is undergoing an official change of identity, from ‘newsletter’ to ‘magazine’, the better to reflect its engagement with a broad audience, and its diversity of features, interviews and opinion pieces, all of which have a greater reach and value than the time-delimited moniker ‘newsletter’ might suggest.  Meanwhile, the British Journal for the History of Science is preparing for its fiftieth birthday in 2012.

The BSHS continues to be active in educational contexts, and we have been successful in our bid for legacy funds from the HEA Subject Centre for Philosophy and Religious Studies, recently wound down.  This successful bid will allow the BSHS to provide funds to members for new initiatives in teaching and learning and will provide new opportunities for postgraduates to meet and receive advice on issues related to career development.  We also aim to use the funds to promote the use of museum collections by students and lecturers.  The new grants available to members will be advertised over the coming months; do get thinking about how you could use the money.

Finally, two conferences are in the offing: the BSHS postgraduate conference will be held at the University of Warwick on 4th-6th January 2012.  Also in 2012, the BSHS annual conference will be replaced by the Three Societies Meeting, a three-way bash with the Canadian Society for the History of Science and the [US] History of Science Society.  Visit hssonline.org for more details and note that the deadline for abstract submissions is 19 December 2011.  The BSHS offers travel bursaries for students wishing to attend the conference – see our own website, and note the same 19 December deadline.

BSHS President Sally Horrocks writes…

From conferences to theatrical performances, from a travel guide to museum and book prizes, the BSHS has been busy as ever during the last few months supporting and promoting the history of science.

2010 saw the first ever BSHS Great Exhibitions competition. 12 entries of extremely high quality were submitted by institutions in Italy, Germany, the US and UK. First prize was awarded in November 2010 to the Museo Galileo in Florence; second prize went to the Thackray Museum in Leeds for the exhibit “How William Astbury’s X-Ray Vision Changed the World”.

From museums to theatres … the BSHS Strolling Players, took their special brand of history of science to around 450 AS-level students at the Big Bang Festival of Science and Engineering at the ExCel Centre in East London earlier this year.  They also performed at two locations in Cambridge with their latest show, ‘The Tables Turned’.

The BSHS postgraduate conference was held at the University of Manchester in January this year. With 70 delegates present, the future of History of Science is looking good in the UK. Later this year (20th July), the growing field of Literature and Science will have its own BSHS event at the Royal Society in London when Sally Shuttleworth will chair a discussion between two eminent novelists who have been inspired by the history of science: Pat Barker (Regeneration) and Philip Sington (The Einstein Girl).

Preparations are well underway for this year’s annual conference at University of Exeter (14-17 July 2011). Highlights of the programme (now available online) include plenary addresses by Martin Rudwick on the Devonian controversy and Mark Jackson on ‘The Twilight Zone’. The sense of place in Martin Rudwick’s history will also be reflected by Andy Bowman discussing his research in Zambia, and by Carol Reeves on her work with the former inhabitants of a sanatorium in Wales. The methods and challenges of oral history will also feature strongly at the conference thanks to the participation of the Oral History of British Science team at the British Library, which I have recently joined. The latest BSHS monograph is ready for launch at the conference.  He Is No Loss, by Emily Steel, is about the Beagle’s surgeon Robert McCormick and includes McCormick’s never-before-transcribed diary.

Meanwhile, the BSHS website  has been undergoing a fundamental redesign during the last year, the better to serve both its members and the general public. One new feature of the site is already up and running: the BSHS Travel Guide. With accessibly written and illustrated entries, this open-access wiki is rapidly becoming the ‘go-to’ site for history-of-science travel, with an average of 2,000 views per months and climbing. The site gives historians of science a public platform for their research, and caters for the large number of people who are interested in the history of science and want to see gems of Victorian engineering, or the birthplace of positivism, or Mexican geology …

Who knows where the BSHS will go next? Wherever it may be, we hope that you’ll come with us! You can get on board by coming to the Society’s EGM on 15th June at 5.30pm at the Wellcome Library, London. There’s a special tour of the museum’s new ‘Dirt’ exhibition beforehand; afterwards, in a talk hosted by Radio 4′s Quentin Cooper, Hugh Pennington discusses Joseph Lister and beginnings of infection control in hospitals. Email office@bshs.org.uk to secure your member’s place at these limited-number public events.