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The Earliest Exhibition Exclusively of Scientific Instruments

1876

The earliest international exposition exclusively of scientific instruments was held at the South Kensington Museum, London in 1876.  As a record of the exhibition the South Kensington Museum published a Handbook to the Special Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus 1876 (London 1876). The section on calculating machines on pages 23-34 was written by H. J. S. Smith, and included those of Babbage, Scheutz, Thomas de Colmar, and Grohmann. None were illustrated. James Clerk Maxwell contributed two chapters in this guide, Peter Guthrie Tait wrote one, and Thomas Henry Huxley wrote one.  A French translation of this work was published in Paris also in 1876.

The South Kensington Museum was later merged into the Science Museum in London.

Hook & Norman, Origins of Cyberspace 369.

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