Science at the Seaside - Science at the Seaside Exhibition, Ilfracombe Museum (2014)

This permanent exhibition with the theme of ‘Seaside Science’ and was launched in April 2014 at Ilfracombe Museum to showcase the creative, commercial and scientific engagement with the North Devon coast from the 1830s onwards. The project as a whole seeks to engage local communities with a neglected aspect of their heritage; namely, the growth of seaside science and environmental tourism in North Devon during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. The North Devon coast attracted many literary and scientific visitors, local and distinguished, professional and amateur; these included well-known figures such as George Eliot, George Henry Lewes, George Tugwell and Philip Gosse, who explored, collected and displayed scientific specimens, as well as published accounts of their visits. There is a rich history of writing about the North Devon coast, which deserves to be better known as it played an important national role in the growth of Victorian popular science.