mainly of instruments that had been used at Leiden University.118 Also in the early 1930s,
Pieter Hendrick van Cittert, a physicist at the University of Utrecht, started drawing attention
to the instrument collection of the dormant Natuurkundig Gezelschap, a learned society that
had been founded in the 18th century. Together with his wife he spent the following years
lobbying for the establishment of what is now the University Museum.11 In North America,
by the 1930s David P. Wheatland, graduate and employee of the physics department at
Harvard, had also started raising awareness for his university’s historical instruments and
began accumulating some of them. A first exhibition of these instruments was organised in
1936, but the collection was only recognised and funded as “The Collection of Historical
Scientific Instruments” after 1947.120
At the same time that these new museums of the history of science were being founded to
preserve and display historical collections of scientific apparatus, 18th-century instrument
collections that had not been dispersed during the 19* century were integrated into some of
the science museums that were also being founded during this period. In 1903, for example,
the very first items that were donated to the - as yet to be built — Deutsches Museum were the
instruments that had formed the repository of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. 1 Or in
1927, the bulk of the George III collection of scientific instruments dating back to the 171
century was transferred to the Science Museum from King’s College.122
So while Teylers Museum had started being perceived as part museum of the history of
science around the turn of the century already and had been invoked as such during the
preparatory stages for the Deutsches Museum, by the 1930s it had become one museum of the
history of science amongst many.
It is of course interesting to see how Teylers Museum developed during this period in history,
particularly in how far the instrument collection in Haarlem was affected by international
developments. This period coincides largely with the curatorship of Hendrik Antoon Lorentz,
who accepted the post in 1909 (although only formally taking it up in 1912) and remained on
until his death in 1928. The following section takes a closer look at his tenureship, and how he
handled the instrument collection that fell under his purview.
118 On this see: Otterspeer, “Begin en context van het Museum Boerhaave.”
119 Esger Brunner, “Erfenis van een echtpaar,” Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Natuurkunde 78, no. 1 (2012): 26-27.
120 David P. Wheatland and Barbara Carson, The Apparatus o f Science at Harvard, 1765-1800 (Cambridge:
Harvard University, 1968), 7-8. I am grateful to Sara Schechner for providing additional information on
Wheatland’s early activities.
1 1 Wilhelm Füßl, “Gründung und Aufbau 1903-1925,” in Geschichte des Deutschen Museums: Akteure,
Artefakte, Ausstellungen, ed. Wilhelm Füßl and Helmuth Trischler (München: Prestel, 2003), 70.
122 Alan Q. Morton and Jane A. Wess, Public & Private Science: The King George III Collection (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1993), 37.
V. Lorentz: A Theoretician as Curator
1. A Revered Theoretical Physicist
By the beginning of the 20th century Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was something of a living
legend, certainly amongst physicists. Revered by all those he ever dealt with, he was held in
high esteem both for his professional work and his good nature. The iconic Albert Einstein
was but one of many brilliant minds who looked up to the Dutchman who gave his name to
the linear transformations so important to the theory of special relativity.
Lorentz’ life and career have been summarised and discussed in various publications, so a
short summary of his activities before coming to Haarlem can suffice here. He was bom in
Arnhem in 1853, attended the local HBS, and was subsequently able to study physics in
Leiden. In 1875 he completed his dissertation, and less than three years later he had been
appointed to the chair of theoretical physics at his alma mater, at the tender age of 24.
This appointment was not only remarkable because Lorentz was so young, but also because
the chair of “mathematical physics and mechanics” he was appointed to had been newly
created, a development which in itself is indicative of the changes occurring within physics,
and which also symbolises the changing status the natural sciences were accorded within
academia. More to the point, although the creation of Lorentz’ chair itself did not yet uproot
the mid-191 century organisational structures within which it was still embedded, it enabled
him to become what would be labelled a “theoretical physicist” by the early 20th century. The
emergence of a field of “theoretical physics” is in turn indicative of the gradual emergence of
a concept of “pure” science, or the idea that it was perfectly legitimate to practice science in
and of itself - to paraphrase the artist’s battle cry, what emerged was a concept of “la science
pour la science”. Research became important in and of itself, a development that was reflected
in the courses Lorentz’ taught in Leiden. Recall how this would have been unthinkable for
van Maram - or, for that matter, for any of his contemporaries - and how Frederik Kaiser and
van der Willigen had still been pioneers in emphasising that science was about research, more
than about character formation or generating an economic benefit.
In 1902, Lorentz received one of the first ever Nobel Prizes, together with Pieter Zeeman. It
was around about this time that he actively began to foster international cooperation. It seems
strange to emphasise this in the case of a Nobel Prize laureate, but until about the turn of the
century Lorentz’ life and work had been a surprisingly local affair. Within a few years,
123 On Lorentz and his position within the history o f science see for instance: Anne J. Kox, “Hendrik A. Lorentz,
1853-1928,” in Van Stevin tot Lorentz: portretten van achttien Nederlandse natuurwetenschappers, ed. Anne J.
Kox (Amsterdam: Bakker, 1990), 226-242; Bastiaan Willink, De tweede Gouden Eeuw: Nederland en de
Nobelprijzen voor natuurwetenschappen, 1870-1940 (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1998), 105—109; Bert
Theunissen, “Nut en nog eens nut": wetenschapsbeelden van Nederlandse natuuronderzoekers, 1800-1900
(Hilversum: Verloren, 2000), 168-184; Frans van Lunteren, “Wissenschaft internationalisieren: Hendrik Antoon
Lorentz, Paul Ehrenfest und ihre Arbeit fur die internationale Wissenschafts-Community,” in Einstein und
Europa: Dimensionen moderner Forschung, ed. Gert Kaiser and Arne Claussen (Düsseldorf:
Wissenschaftszentrum NRW, 2006), 25-35.