Technology

Science and Industry Collection

This collection contains mechanical, optical, and electronic machines in the everyday world from early telecommunications devices to entertainment technologies and computers.

Includes:

  • one of the largest collections of music boxes in the world
  • the first radar magnetrons
  • LEO 1, the world’s first business computer
  • Harwell Dekatron, the oldest digital computer
  • Birmingham-made components for the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable to the large hadron collider at Cern
  • one of the country’s first industrial robots, and a unique button-making machine used by Buttons Ltd. These machines are 20th century examples of automation, begun by Heaton 150 years earlier.

Please be aware that objects from our collections are not always on public display. 
If you are hoping to view a specific object or collection, please check the ‘Highlights' or 'What to See’ pages on our venue websites for current display information for that venue. Alternatively, feel free to contact us before your visit.

Image gallery

  • Close up of a figure of a monkey in a pink, satin dress and net head-piece, playing a stringed instrument and looking at sheet-music
  • Figure of a monkey in a pink, satin dress and net head-piece, playing a stringed instrument, placed on top of a wooden box
  • Metal tube and four pronged, metal components
  • A grained wooden box with a clear domed lid, through which you can see metal mechanisms. From the lid shoots a fluted metal horn
  • Cross-section of thick cable on end showing layers of the different metal strands within it
  • An open wooden box showing the internal workings of a music player, it contains cylinders with prongs and a paper roll with punched out squares
  • An object that looks like an open photograph album. On the page is an illustration of a lady in a cream and blue dress, wearing a black and blue, feathered hat. Below the illutsration is a horizontal line, etched into the page
  • An object that looks like a closed, brown leather diary. It has a black, swirling pattern inscribed on the top
  • Small open music box with red and blue piping detail on the top box and the metal mechanism sitting in the lower box
  • Small, wooden music box with geometric cube pattern on the lid
  • Open, rectangular music box with silver mechanisms sittting in the lower box. On the outside of the lower box is an illustration of flowers with a drum and brass instruments in the centre
  • Closed, rectangular music box with flower and instrument painting on the lower lid and a smaller illustration of flowers in the centre of the top lid
  • Open music box with a disc mechanism in the lower lid. In the upper lid is a black and white illustration of a group of partially-clothed children, surrounded by trees and nature. One plays a stringed instrument, another play the piano, and another appears to be singing. On the bottom left of the illustration is the word 'symphonion'.
  • Closed, wooden music box with the word 'Symphonion' painted on the lid in silver, cursive letters