Oral History of British Science


An Oral History of British Science is an oral history project conducted by National Life Stories at the British Library. The project began in 2009 with funding from the Arcadia Fund, the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 and a number of other private donors and focuses on audio interviews with British science and engineering figures.

Project background

The project focused on 200 video interviews lasting 8–15 hours, with four themes: Made in Britain, A Changing Planet, Cosmologies and Biomedicine. The project Advisory Committee included Jon Agar, Alec Broers, Tilly Blyth, Georgina Ferry, Dame Julia Higgins, Maja Kominko, Sir Harry Kroto, John Lynch, Chris Rapley and Simone Turchetti.
An Oral History of British Science was conducted by National Life Stories at the British Library, and formed part of a wider institutional initiative to better document contemporary history of science and technology through the addition of audio visual sources as well as written sources.

Methodology

The oral history of British science follows the biographical, or life story, oral history approach with each audio interview averaging 8 to 15 hours in length. The interviews cover the individual’s career history, education, background and family.

Access to interviews

All interviews are catalogued on the Sound and Moving Image Catalogue. Interviews which are complete and open are accessible onsite at the Library in St Pancras, London and in Boston Spa, Yorkshire via the Library’s Listening & Viewing Service. Interviews which are open are also made accessible via the Archival Sound Recordings website under the ‘Oral history of British science’ content package.

People interviewed

Interviewed for ‘A Changing Planet’:
Interviewed for ‘Made in Britain’:
Interviewed under ‘Biomedicine’: