After re-opening from lockdown in May 2021, the museum was able to welcome visitors back and (finally!) celebrate 50 years since public opening with local partners and community groups.
The museum also hosted over a dozen other new activities during the second half of 2021, including: temporary exhibitions, research presentations and online videos; society meetings and community events; a book launch, book reading, a fashion show, sculpture displays, Victorian Christmas and much more!
As an independent museum, Cambridge Museum of Technology relies on the contributions of visitors, volunteers, partners, donors and funding organisations. Thanks to everyone who contributed during 2021; please do consider giving the museum a 50th-birthday present!
Celebrating 50 Years of Cambridge Museum of Technology
After lots of hard work by staff and volunteers to ready the museum for post-lockdown re-opening, the 50th Birthday Weekend in July 2021 was an opportunity to enjoy an array of steam-powered engines, classic cars, music, food and entertainment from community groups spread across the entire museum site from Riverside to Cheddars Lane.
Relive the birthday weekend (and the first 50 years of the museum!) in this documentary video, based on the museum’s 50th anniversary exhibition and produced for Open Cambridge.
New at the museum 2021: exhibitions, presentations, accessions and tours
During 2021, the museum hosted new research, including:
Hurst Park Estate exhibition: local historians Rachel Aucott and Jim Smith and exhibitions volunteer Harriet O'Rourke presented the story of how agriculture and industry gave way to housing as Cambridge expanded into Chesterton, featuring a lost Victorian house, a windmill, a farm, a laundry and a brickworks (images courtesy of Tony Everett and The Mills Archive).
Cambridge Industrial Archaeology Society’s 2021-2022 programme featured:
And – online – the museum premiered An Aerial Odyssey Around Cambridge: a contemporary aerial-drone circumnavigation of Cambridge’s industrial sites: past, present and future.
New accessions and displays included:
“Save it!” poster from the campaign in the late 1960s, which led to the re-opening of Old Pumping Station as Cambridge Museum of Technology in 1971
Cambridge Instrument Company portable electrocardiograph from Papworth Hall
Maps of the Chivers factory (Histon) from 1920s
The prototype of the world's first digital (10-line) telephone exchange, designed by Pye Telecommunications in the 1950s.
Former employees of Pye continued to offer in-person tours of the Pye Building and online tutorials about how Pye equipment worked.
The museum also launched virtual tours – hosted by Curator Pam Halls – for remote audiences via web-conference, featuring a 360-degree walk-through of the museum plus a riverboat tour of industrial sites along the River Cam.
New at the museum 2021: refurbished gift shop and Kerb Kollective coffee & bakery
During 2021, the museum’s refurbished and restocked shop was re-opened, and the specialty coffee and bake shop Kerb Kollective opened its operations on-site, enabling visitors to stop by the museum’s grounds (with its beautiful river views!) during weekday business hours – outside of the museum’s weekend-opening hours.
Hosted events
From an archaeology conference to a fashion show, book launch and book reading to an award ceremony, a wedding reception to a birthday party, the museum continued to offer adaptable facilities that enable third parties to host their own custom events.
In June 2021, the museum hosted classic and vintage motorcycles.
In July 2021, the museum hosted the East of England Regional Industrial Archaeology Conference (EERIAC), featuring presentations about Cambridge’s iron-working heritage and the museum’s own ‘Back in Steam’ project.
Over the summer, the museum hosted family-activity printing workshops as part of Summer with the Museums. Cow sculptures were also prominently displayed on the frontage as part of Cows About Cambridge installations around the city.
In September 2021 Oblique Arts presented ‘Rethink Fashion’, using the industrial setting of the museum to host a recycled fashion show.
In October 2021, the museum hosted a book launch and performance “Rebirth – A Maroon Warrior” by General Saint aka Winston Hislop.
In November 2021, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMECHE) hosted its award ceremony for chartered engineers in a simultaneous on-site and virtual-broadcast event, facilitated by museum staff and volunteers.
In the same month, storyteller Robert Lloyd Parry, aka Nunkie Theatre, returned to the museum’s engine room for a dramatic reading of the ghost story ‘The Willows’.
In December 2021, the museum hosted its own Victorian Christmas, with vintage craft activities, live music, food and seasonal gifts raising funds for the next 50 years of the museum.
Looking ahead to 2022...
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Acknowledgements
Image credits: The Willcox Collective, Tony Everett and The Mills Archive, General Saint aka Winston Hislop, Pam Halls, Nick Plaister, Steve Crammond, Gordon Davies