I generalise, I know, but scientists are not good at looking backwards. They are always thinking about the next meeting, the next experiment, the next tranche of funding. There is little time for retrospection whether happily or as a "learning opportunity" so much of what we do gets done then just shoved in a cupboard. Next!
I have worked at Rutherford Laboratory since July 1989 so have seen this many times and yes, have been guilty myself of shoving stuff into a cupboard and moving on. The refurbishment and building works on site over the last few years have exacerbated this still further. Rutherford Lab is working hard to optimise its use of space so corridors of small offices are being turned into open-plan areas, papers disposed of, cupboards emptied and old equipment cleared (ie. chucked into a skip) because we simply do not have the space any more. But what better way to get new customers and employees on-board than to be able to say "We are proud of what we do here," for some departments to be able to say "We've been in this business a long time and here is what we were doing 50 years ago," and for all of us to be able to say We've been at the heart of science for more than 100 years and here is some of the memorabilia we have collected on the way?
In April 2022 I presented a paper to STFC Executive Board who were "...asked to agreed that our heritage is worth preserving, and approve the setting up of a small project team to develop the case for a heritage centre on the Harwell Campus." Our CEO had already read the paper and told me "It's a no-brainer -- we have to try to do this" so they would have had some difficulty persuading him otherwise but even so I was extremely nervous then thrilled when they agreed. (Well... they didn't say no.) We were extremely fortunate that a member of that board was from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) so suggested we talk to their Associate Director for Programmes. AHRC is not a Research Council that STFC generally deals with so this was a bit of a surprise, but turned out to be a happy one.
A year and many meetings later, AHRC are poised to launch on STFC's behalf a two-year research grant for a professional archivist to audit as much of the "old stuff" as I can find across the entire campus. This encompasses the Chilton Computing Collection created by Bob Hopgood, the Ditton Park and Appleton Laboratory Collections created by Matthew Wild and RAL Space, the infamous "stuff in the catacombs" that I inherited by accident from the Library and Estates, AERE Harwell memorabilia owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in the shell of the DIDO reactor, and an ever-increasing list of pockets of stuff held by retired and nearly-retired staff either on site or in various spare rooms, home offices and sheds.
The initial aim is simply to find out what we've got. Some of the Ditton Park/Appleton Laboratory papers date back to when he was simply Mr Edward Appleton (early 1920s to 1970s), the Harwell artefacts from the AERE days (mid-1940s to 2000), the Rutherford Laboratory papers to when we were the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory (RHEL) under the National Institute for Research in Nuclear Science (NIRNS) (late 1950s to 1960s), and the Rutherford [Appleton] Laboratory (1970s to 2020s and onwards). As you can see, it is quite a considerable time frame.
The second aim is to figure out what to do next, and what to do with it all.
The Chilton Computing section of the website has been put together by Someone Who Knows because he was there. The Rutherford and Harwell sections are by no means comprehensive but do go some way towards documenting the "process of discovery of stuff," highlighting things that I find interesting (which is quite a lot), surprising (a fair bit) or just plain odd (more often than one would expect).
There is a separate project managed by Harwell Campus Management Ltd to develop a Harwell Visitor Centre. This would be focussed on companies and institutes across campus giving an opportunity for them to talk about the work and research they are doing right now. The Visitor Centre will also incorporate a heritage element describing what we were doing 40 (1970s CLF and RAL Space), 50 (1980s Informatics Department), 60 (1960s Atlas and Nimrod), 70 (1950s Rutherford High Energy Laboratory), 80 (1940s AERE Harwell), and 100 (1920s/1930s DSIR, Ditton Park) years ago. As I said, we've been at the heart of science for more than 100 years and here is some of the memorabilia we have collected on the way.
Victoria Marshall, June 2023
