About
Join us at Down County Museum for a free talk to accompany the new British Museum Touring Exhibition, 'For the curious and interested'.
'A spirit rising up in this Country for Natural Knowledge': Hans Sloane and Collecting in Early Modern Ireland.
Hans Sloane's pursuit of nature propelled him upwards through society at an astonishing rate. Born in 1660, the seventh son of a land agent in Killyleagh, County Down, he died in 1753 as an astronomically wealthy baronet with enough collected treasures to establish the world's first national museum, The British Museum. Yet almost no work has been done on Sloane's Irish networks and his involvement with his country and people of origin. This paper illuminates Sloane's personal and professional relationships with diverse Irish scholars who were interested in medical, natural historical and antiquarian issues, and how they collected in order to map the geography, history and political economy of Ireland, highlighting the links between natural history, collecting, and ideas of nationhood as they developed in the eighteenth century.
Dr Alice Marples is the Research & Postgraduate Development Manager at The British Library and a historian of science and medicine in Britain and its colonies, c.1650-1850. Her work focuses on the collection and management of manuscript, material and human resources across scientific, state and commercial networks from the early modern period to the present day. She received her PhD from King's College London in 2016, and has held a range of research and teaching positions including at the Universities of Manchester and Oxford, the Royal Society, and the Edward Worth Library in Dublin. She has a book coming out in June 2024, entitled Innovations in Teaching History: Eighteenth-Century Studies in Higher Education, co-edited with Matthew McCormack and Ruth Larsen.
Tickets are free but booking is advised. Please contact museums@nmandd.org or call +44 (0) 33 0137 4252.
The British Museum Touring Exhibition, 'For the curious and interested' is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10am to 4.30pm.
Guide Prices
| Ticket Type | Ticket Tariff |
|---|---|
| Ticket | Free |
Tickets are free but booking is advised. Please contact museums@nmandd.org or call +44 (0) 33 0137 4252.
