Festivals of science and the two cultures: Science, design and display in the Festival of Britain, 1951

British Journal for the History of Science

Volumn 31, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 217-240

  Forgan, Sophie ^a  

^a TEESSIDE UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0005161652     PISSN: 00070874     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007087498003264     Document Type: Review

References (91)

1. Winifred Holtby (1898-1935), writer, critic and feminist. Copy in the hand of Helen Megaw, crystallographer, and used by her as preface to the draft of an article, 'Pattern in crystallography', written around 1946 but not published in that form; Helen Megaw's Papers, mainly relating to the Crystal Design Project of the Festival of Britain, Festival Pattern Group, Victoria & Albert Museum Archive of Art and Design, London, 3/36-1977 (hereafter Megaw Papers AAD).
2. A useful introduction may be found in P. Greenhalgh, The Expositions Universelles: Great Exhibitions and World's Fairs, 1851-1939, Manchester, 1988.
3. R. Cooter and S. Pumfrey, 'Separate spheres and public places: reflections on the history of science popularization and science in popular culture', History of Science (1994), 32, 237-67.
4. M. Banham and B. Hillier (eds.), Tonic to the Nation, London, 1976. This remains, however, a very useful source of information about the Festival and of retrospective memories of it.
5. For example, J. Woodham, Twentieth Century Ornament, London, 1990, 203-5; L. Jackson, The New Look: Design in the Fifties, London, 1991, 85-94.
6. For example, J. Woodham, Twentieth Century Ornament, London, 1990, 203-5; L. Jackson, The New Look: Design in the Fifties, London, 1991, 85-94.
7. D. Edgerton, Science, Technology and the British Industrial 'Decline' 1870-1970, Cambridge, 1996.
8. C. P. Snow, 'The two cultures', New Statesman, 6 October 1956, 413; and The Rede Lecture, 1959: The Two Cultures, Cambridge, 1959. Although it was commonplace to talk about 'culture', it seems probable that it was Snow who coined the term 'two cultures', which has now become an inalterable part of the historiography of the period.
9. C. P. Snow, 'The two cultures', New Statesman, 6 October 1956, 413; and The Rede Lecture, 1959: The Two Cultures, Cambridge, 1959. Although it was commonplace to talk about 'culture', it seems probable that it was Snow who coined the term 'two cultures', which has now become an inalterable part of the historiography of the period.
10. Ian Cox, The South Bank Exhibition: A Guide to the Story it Tells, London, 1951, 6. The guidebooks to the main exhibitions in the Festival were produced by the Festival Office and published by HMSO.
11. The Ramsden Report for the Board of Trade in 1943 considered 'the part which Exhibitions and Fairs should play in the promotion of Export Trade in the Post War Era'; cited in R. Stewart, Design and British Industry, London, 1987. On 22 August 1947 the then Director of the Science Museum, Dr Herman Shaw (1891-1950), wrote to Sir Evelyn Shaw about the possibility of having a big commemorative exhibition in 1951. In the background of course was the realization that an exhibition would hasten much needed reconstruction work on the Museum's bomb-damaged building; Science Museum Archive, London, 8390/1/1.
12. Gerald Barry (1898-1968), Editor of the News Chronicle 1936-47, and Director-General of the Festival of Britain, 1948-51; General Lord 'Pug' Ismay (1887-1963) had had a distinguished military career and, as Roy Strong pointed out, his appointment was a masterstroke of practical politics, and was also symbolically 'in human terms, swords turned into ploughshares'; Banham and Hillier, op. cit. (4), 13.
13. Gerald Barry (1898-1968), Editor of the News Chronicle 1936-47, and Director-General of the Festival of Britain, 1948-51; General Lord 'Pug' Ismay (1887-1963) had had a distinguished military career and, as Roy Strong pointed out, his appointment was a masterstroke of practical politics, and was also symbolically 'in human terms, swords turned into ploughshares'; Banham and Hillier, op. cit. (4), 13.
14. Ian Cox, final Report to the Council for Science and Technology, 31 October 1951, p. 10; Public Record Office, Kew, WORKS 25/50/A5/F2 (hereafter PRO). Cox gives a briefer version of a good part of this report in 'Three years a-growing: recollections of the Festival before the turnstiles opened', in Banham and Hillier, op. cit. (4), 62-9.
15. Ian Cox, final Report to the Council for Science and Technology, 31 October 1951, p. 10; Public Record Office, Kew, WORKS 25/50/A5/F2 (hereafter PRO). Cox gives a briefer version of a good part of this report in 'Three years a-growing: recollections of the Festival before the turnstiles opened', in Banham and Hillier, op. cit. (4), 62-9.
16. There were fifteen members, of whom one died and three retired before the Festival was finally opened. Full list given in Cox, final Report, op. cit. (11), 2.
17. Egerton, Salisbury, Smith and Angwin all appear in the DNB; Sir John Fryer had spent most of his career in Ministry of Agriculture laboratories, Who Was Who, London, 1932, iv, 414.
18. Barlow's career in the civil service culminated in the position of joint second secretary to the Treasury 1938-48. He had chaired the Barlow Committee set up to consider post-war policy on the use and development of Britain's scientific manpower resources. He was married to a granddaughter of Charles Darwin and known for his wide-ranging interests in both scientific and artistic affairs; DNB.
19. Ian Cox was also a member of the general Executive Committee and of the Presentations Panel, so a key figure in the general direction of the Festival.
20. Cox, op. cit. (8), 8-9.
21. This was given free rein in the Lion and the Unicorn pavilion, with a section devoted to British eccentricities and humours, and in the Battersea Pleasure Gardens with Rowland Emett's 'Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway'; see Banham and Hillier, op. cit. (4), 96-101, 125-7.
22. Mark Hartland Thomas to Sir Lawrence Bragg, 18 May 1951, Royal Institution Archives, London, Bragg MS, 50B/157.
23. For a discussion of the background to the concerns of the Council of Industrial Design, see Paddy Maguire, 'Designs on reconstruction: British business, market structures and the role of design in post-war recovery', Journal of Design History (1991), 4, 15-30.
24. Misha Black (1910-77), industrial designer and founding partner of the Design Research Unit, which was headed initially by Herbert Read (1893-1968), the influential writer and art critic. The Design Research Unit was to become one of the most important design practices in post-war Britain.
25. Dr Helen Megaw (1907-), crystallographer, was a fellow of Girton College and Assistant Director of Research, Department of Physics, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge.
26. Letters between Marcus Brumwell (Design Research Unit) and Helen Megaw, 11 July 1945 to 25 November 1946, in Megaw Papers AAD, 3/8 to 15-1977. Marcus Brumwell was a friend of J. D. Bernal (1901-71), whose circle of crystallographic, artistic and radical friends so often appear in this period.
27. K. Lonsdale to H. Megaw, 16 November 1946, Megaw Papers AAD, 3/28-1977. The title was apparently 'Art and Architecture in Science'.
28. See letter from Denis L. Johnston, Design (1951), 32, 30. Whether this was the lecture for which Lonsdale had first borrowed Megaw's drawings in unclear, but Lonsdale gave several such lunchtime lectures at University College London.
29. The members are listed at the back of the booklet produced by Mark Hartland Thomas to describe and celebrate the activities of the group, The Souvenir Book of Crystal Designs: The Fascinating Story in Colour of the Festival Pattern Group, London, HMSO/Council of Industrial Design, 1951.
30. The souvenir element was of course fairly strong. See also the article by Helen Megaw in the Architectural Review (1951), 94, 236-9, accompanied by illustrations of a number of fabrics and objects bearing crystal patterns.
31. W. L. Bragg to Sir Kenneth Lee, 17 May 1951, Royal Institution Archives, London, Bragg MS, 50B/159. Bragg in this letter states that Hartland Thomas heard Kathleen Lonsdale lecture at the Royal Institution, which is probably an error, though she did give a Friday Evening Discourse on 'Neutron Diffraction by Crystals' there in March 1949.
32. Royal Institution Archives, London, Bragg MS, 26 May 1951, 50B/161.
33. Op. cit. (26), 236. Megaw's article was prefaced by an editorial piece in which this injunction appears.
34. Hugh Casson (1910-), Professor of Architecture at the Royal College of Art and President of the Royal Academy 1976-84; Paul Reilly, head of the Council of Industrial Design from 1960 to 1977. Interviews with both, conducted by Michael Cromarty, industrial design student, Teesside Polytechnic, took place in early 1985.
35. This hoped-for commercial success was clearly set out in the Festival Pattern Group meetings, which labelled all papers 'Secret', hoping to spring the design offensive on (unnamed) potential competitors. Hartland Thomas sent out highly charged pleas to the Group's members asking that the 'correspondence does not fall into unauthorised hands, by marking all envelopes "SECRET"' (sic); Megaw Papers AAD, 3/141-170. On the vogue for molecules and atoms, see Jackson, op. cit. (5), 86.
36. This hoped-for commercial success was clearly set out in the Festival Pattern Group meetings, which labelled all papers 'Secret', hoping to spring the design offensive on (unnamed) potential competitors. Hartland Thomas sent out highly charged pleas to the Group's members asking that the 'correspondence does not fall into unauthorised hands, by marking all envelopes "SECRET"' (sic); Megaw Papers AAD, 3/141-170. On the vogue for molecules and atoms, see Jackson, op. cit. (5), 86.
37. Marcel Brion, quoted in Jackson, op. cit. (5), 86-7.
38. This is nicely revealed in a letter from the sculptress, Barbara Hepworth to Marcus Brumwell, 'The main point seems to me to produce them as suggested in series - with their proper names - exactly as they really are. To me they are more beautiful than any man-made pattern.' Copy in Megaw's hand with letter from M. Brumwell, 15 March 1946, Megaw Papers AAD, 3/15-177.
39. Megaw's article (op. cit. (26)) explains the process. The following discussion is based on an examination of Megaw's notes, working drawings and duplicates of patterns submitted to the Festival Pattern Group contained in the Megaw Papers AAD, 3/420 to 572, and 3/577 ro 693-1977.
40. An ångstrom is a hundred-millionth of a centimetre. Megaw was using a standard procedure for rendering a three-dimensional structure in two dimensions so that it could be reproduced for the pages of a scientific journal.
41. Copyright to the 'original' scientific description of the substance had to be negotiated with each scientist, who responded variously, especially when an element of secrecy was involved until the launch of the Festival.
42. A Fourier projection analyses into Fourier line wave functions the total electron density in a crystal and thus the amount of X-ray scattering produced by a crystal; Lawrence Bragg gives a clear description of such a projection in his lecture 'Crystallographic Research in the Cavendish Laboratory', reproduced in Proceedings of the Royal Institution (1950), 35, 103-13, especially 105. Megaw tended to use Patterson projections more frequently, but both Fourier and Patterson projections produced nicely rounded amoebic shapes that accorded well with the curved, so-called 'organic' shapes of design trends at the time.
43. An example may be seen in the crystal structure of titanium boride, Megaw Papers AAD, 3/604 to 6-1977.
44. As Megaw wrote in her article, 'A good guess may take one straight to the answer, a bad guess wastes a lot of time before it is disproved', op. cit. (26), 239.
45. 'I am constantly being impressed by the beauty of the designs which crop up in the course of the work without any attempt of the worker to secure anything more than clarity and accuracy', Megaw to Marcus Brumwell, 20 February [1946], Megaw Papers AAD, 3/12-1977. She was not alone in experimenting with such patterns. Professor The Svedborg (1884-1971), the Swedish Nobel prizewinner in chemistry, also designed around this time a series of textile patterns based on atomic, genetic and biological structures. I am grateful to Dr Ingrid Möring of Uppsala for this information.
46. Dr Megaw's 'Notes on the Crystal Structure Diagrams', p. 2 (data 12 January 1950), appended to minutes of meeting 16 December 1949 of Festival Pattern Group; Megaw Papers AAD, 3/125-170. The draft of her notes on the explanation of the conventions is found at 3/484-1977.
47. G. W. Brindley to H. Megaw, 19 February 1951, Megaw Papers AAD, 3/726-1977.
48. Megaw to Brumwell, 20 February [1946], Megaw Papers AAD, 3/12-1977. See also the comment by Barbara Hepworth cited in note 33.
49. The Fabric and wallpaper manufacturer, Warner's, developed a fabric named after the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell as part of their participation in the Festival Pattern Group; I am grateful to Mary Schoesser for this information.
50. Some oral evidence suggests that people remembered the patterns but did not connect them with the science as such, even when they had a scientific background.
51. J. Bronowski, Exhibition of Science, South Kensington, a Guide to the Story it Tells, London, 1951, 7. This quotation forms the second paragraph to Bronowski's opening chapter, 'The story the exhibition tells'.
52. I. Cox, 'Contribution of the Science Directorate to the Festival of Britain 1951', PRO, WORKS 25/50, 4. This was formally adopted in August 1948 by the Executive Committee and approved in September by the Festival Council. Cox's key role in developing the theme seems to have gone unremarked, despite his own assertion of it in Banham and Hillier, op. cit. (4), 63.
53. I. Cox, 'Contribution of the Science Directorate to the Festival of Britain 1951', PRO, WORKS 25/50, 4. This was formally adopted in August 1948 by the Executive Committee and approved in September by the Festival Council. Cox's key role in developing the theme seems to have gone unremarked, despite his own assertion of it in Banham and Hillier, op. cit. (4), 63.
54. Science Museum Archive, London, FOB/Press/5/50, p. 1; a series of press releases emanated from the Festival Office in a well-organized press campaign.
55. 'Placing of the Main Scientific Subjects in the South Bank Exhibition', Science Museum Archive, London, FOB/Press/5/50, Appendix 1, 3. The names of the sections in this 1950 press release do not precisely correspond with the names finally given to each pavilion, but identification is relatively straightforward.
56. Cox, op. cit. (8), 8. It should, however, be remembered that these years were also those of the Korean War, and journals at the time, such as the Illustrated London News, interleaved their accounts of the Festival and its preparations with reports from the front and news of the retreat from the Imjin River.
57. Note the carefully thought out approach to design, seen for example in the exhibition guidebooks, colour coded for different sites, and the general thrust of the layout and typography towards clarity and easy communication. Similarly, scientific imagery ran through much of the display design, from Festival Pattern Group fabrics and carpets to atomic lighting structures - one over 600 feet long was used in the Science Museum. Many of the exhibition architects and designers had belonged to the pre-war Mars Group, which brought together those most interested in the new ideas emanating from the Continent, in particular from CIAM (the Congrès Internationale d'Architecture Moderne).
58. F. Sherwood Taylor to Cox, 12 October 1950, and Cox reply 18 October 1950, Science Museum Archive, London, 8390/21.
59. Minutes of Council for Science and Technology, 13 October 1948 meeting, PRO, WORKS 25/50/A5/F1.
60. Minutes, op. cit. (53), 14 December 1949 meeting.
61. An Exhibition of the Petroleum Industry, 1951, Cambridge, 16-28 July, booklet produced by Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. Ltd and the Shell Petroleum Co. Ltd.
62. Minutes of the Cartography Advisory Panel, 20 December 1948, PRO, WORKS 25/50/A5/G3, minute no. 5.
63. Minutes, op. cit. (56), minute no. 7.
64. Minutes, op. cit. (56), minute no. 8.
65. Correspondence between Dr F. Calvert and Brigadier J. L. P. Macnair, 31 January to 19 February 1951, Science Museum Archive, London, 8390/42/1-2.
66. Sir Andrew Huxley in conversation with the author, April 1995.
67. Report by A. R. Michaelis, 14 June 1949, PRO, WORKS 25/50/A5/F2.
68. Black's article was highlighted by a note on the circulation list; PRO, WORKS 25/19/A1-E1, 19. Black also edited the standard text on exhibition design first published in 1950, Exhibition Design, London, 1950.
69. Black, PRO, WORKS 25/19/A1-E1, 19.
70. As Cox wrote in his summary of the science exhibition plans, 'The preparation of a science exhibition along such novel lines is in the hands of a small central staff of highly trained scientists, working in collaboration with artists and specialists from the entertainments industry', 19 January 1950, PRO, WORKS 25/40/A5/A6.
71. Collins Magazine for Boys and Girls, May 1951.
72. Appendix IV to Director's Report to the Council of Science and Technology, 20 July 1949, PRO, WORKS 25/50/A5/F2.
73. Memo by Cox, 15 May 1950, op. cit. (66). Perhaps the experimental fairground roundabout was the same as the one actually used in the Battersea Pleasure Gardens, where, as the novelist Penelope Lively recalled, 'spectators could watch the entrancing exhibition of women desperately trying to hold down their flying skirts as they were whirled around'; reported in The Times, 1 March 1996, 31.
74. Bronowski, op. cit. (46), 7-9.
75. These changes are clearly laid out by Ian Cox in a detailed Appendix II, dated 6 December 1949, to the Agenda of the third meeting of the Council for Science and Technology on the Science Exhibition at South Kensington, Science Museum Archive, London, 8390 (Box general papers), 2-3.
76. The target audience was 'that part of the general public with a predisposition to be interested in scientific matters', Cox, op. cit. (69), 2. Bronowski's final text for the printed Guidebook was considerably simplified and made much more accessible than the original script. There is some evidence that those with no knowledge but an intelligent interest in science found the Science Exhibition exciting and interesting. One such visitor recalled the soft booming (recorded) voice at the entrance, the rotating piece of graphite drawing a broken circle, the increasing darkness as one proceeded, and felt that it gave her a real thrill and sense of excitement; Verna Metcalfe in conversation with the author, September 1996. Cox's final Report noted the 'pleased surprise felt by our visitors from abroad on finding such an atmosphere in an exhibition of science', Cox, final Report, op. cit. (11), 15.
77. The target audience was 'that part of the general public with a predisposition to be interested in scientific matters', Cox, op. cit. (69), 2. Bronowski's final text for the printed Guidebook was considerably simplified and made much more accessible than the original script. There is some evidence that those with no knowledge but an intelligent interest in science found the Science Exhibition exciting and interesting. One such visitor recalled the soft booming (recorded) voice at the entrance, the rotating piece of graphite drawing a broken circle, the increasing darkness as one proceeded, and felt that it gave her a real thrill and sense of excitement; Verna Metcalfe in conversation with the author, September 1996. Cox's final Report noted the 'pleased surprise felt by our visitors from abroad on finding such an atmosphere in an exhibition of science', Cox, final Report, op. cit. (11), 15.
78. This optimism was in great measure encouraged by scientists themselves, despite their simultaneous charges of neglect and lack of investment in science; see D. Edgerton, 'British scientific intellectuals and the relations of science, technology and war', in National Military Establishments and the Advancement of Science and Technology (ed. P. Forman and J. M. Sanchez-Ron), Dordrecht, 1996, 1-35.
79. The DNB lists Bronowski (1908-74) as 'mathematician, poet and humanist'. Trained in mathematics at Cambridge, Bronowski's wartime work related to developing operational research methods. From 1946 to 1950 he worked on statistics relating to the economics of building and other industries for the Ministry of Works, and in 1950 became Director of the Coal Research Establishment with the National Coal Board. The books referred to here were The Poet's Defence (Cambridge, 1939), and William Blake, a Man Without a Mask (London, 1944). He won the Italia Prize for The Face of Violence (London, 1951).
80. The DNB lists Bronowski (1908-74) as 'mathematician, poet and humanist'. Trained in mathematics at Cambridge, Bronowski's wartime work related to developing operational research methods. From 1946 to 1950 he worked on statistics relating to the economics of building and other industries for the Ministry of Works, and in 1950 became Director of the Coal Research Establishment with the National Coal Board. The books referred to here were The Poet's Defence (Cambridge, 1939), and William Blake, a Man Without a Mask (London, 1944). He won the Italia Prize for The Face of Violence (London, 1951).
81. The DNB lists Bronowski (1908-74) as 'mathematician, poet and humanist'. Trained in mathematics at Cambridge, Bronowski's wartime work related to developing operational research methods. From 1946 to 1950 he worked on statistics relating to the economics of building and other industries for the Ministry of Works, and in 1950 became Director of the Coal Research Establishment with the National Coal Board. The books referred to here were The Poet's Defence (Cambridge, 1939), and William Blake, a Man Without a Mask (London, 1944). He won the Italia Prize for The Face of Violence (London, 1951).
82. First published 1951, reprinted eight times since, and still available. Bronowski continued to be a prolific author, and went on to become a favourite 'Brains Trust' panellist and presenter of science to the public, notably with the success of the television series and accompanying book, The Ascent of Man, London, 1973.
83. The penultimate paragraph included the following glowing tribute to the spirit of the gas industry: 'I prefer to look for it [an explanation of the enthusiasm] partly in the acute sense of social service which the manufacture of gas fosters, partly in the excitement of the discovery that an industry which seemed static for so long is now as dynamic as any in the country, and partly in the crusading spirit begotten by the continuously growing opportunities to persuade the public that the flame is still as vital as it ever was in spite of electricity's advance, and now the promise of harnessing atomic energy'; The Vital Flame, London, 1947, 80.
84. The design aspects of this are discussed in J. M. Woodham, 'Managing British design reform I: fresh perspectives on the early years of the Council of Industrial Design', Journal of Design History (1996), 9, 55-65.
85. C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures, with Introduction by Stefan Collini, Cambridge, 1993.
86. Gary McCullock, 'A technocratic vision: the ideology of school science reform in Britain in the 1950s', Social Studies of Science (1988), 18, 703-24.
87. See Edgerton, op. cit. (6), 19.
88. Indeed a large number of exhibits and a large quantity of display materials were earmarked for schools and museums after the Festival, especially those exhibits that helped visitors to understand 'how we know' and be entranced by the beauty and excitement of science.
89. David Lodge, Out of the Shelter, London, 1970/86, 132-3. See also his Epilogue written in 1984, p. 278.
90. David Lodge, Out of the Shelter, London, 1970/86, 132-3. See also his Epilogue written in 1984, p. 278.
91. Design (1961), 149, 51.