Spring, 1996
The history of scientific instruments has many connections with navigation, cartography, surveying and travel. It is appropriate, therefore, that an anniversary meeting of the Hakluyt Society is to be hosted jointly by the Faculty of Modern History and the Museum. The Society was founded in 1846 to promote the publication of records of voyages and travel and is named after Richard Hakluyt (1552?-1616), the leading advocate and chronicler of overseas expansion in the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.
The meeting will take the form of a study afternoon on the subject of ‘Science and Geography in Imperial Contexts’. A selection of short papers will be given, with the list of speakers including Richard Drayton, Richard Grove, Juan Pimentel Igea and Manuel Lucena Giraldo. A visit to the Museum will follow the papers and will focus on instruments from Hakluyt’s time.
Those wishing to attend should contact Dr Félipe Fernández-Armesto c/o the Faculty of Modern History, where the meeting will begin at 2 p.m. on the 3rd May.