Richard Dunn

Profile

Curator of the History of Navigation

I am responsible for helping people understand the Museum’s collection of navigational instruments, including compasses and sextants. My work involves doing research into the history and use of these objects. I also enjoy writing and talking about the history of navigation in general.

My favourite subject to talk about

Right now it's the history of the British Board of Longitude, since I 'm part of a major research project we're doing with the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. But I’m always happy to talk about navigation generally. After all, navigation’s all about tackling that tricky question: where am I going?

The questions I'm asked most often

What ship was it used on?

That’s a tricky one. For a portable hand-held instrument like a telescope or a sextant, you are unlikely to be able to tell unless there is an owner’s name or (very rarely) a ship’s name engraved on it.

For instruments that were regularly inspected, such as compasses and chronometers, there are some surviving records held at the National Maritime Museum that may help if the item was from a Royal Navy vessel. For a compass, there are surviving ‘swing’ records mostly from the period 1842 to 1917, but the handwritten forms are filed by year and by ship name, so until we transfer the information into a database it will be tricky to extract the information. For a chronometer, knowing the serial number may be enough to tell you which vessels it served on.

The last option would be to try to track down surviving sales records from manufacturers. Some survive in archives around the country, but these can be difficult to search and may not have the information you’re really after.

My recommended books

• Taking the Stars: Celestial Navigation from Argonauts to Astronauts
• The Haven-Finding Art: A history of Navigation from Odysseus to Captain Cook
• The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times
• From Sails to Satellites: The Origin and Development of Navigational Science

Academic profile

Curator of the History of Navigation

Biography

Having gained a PhD in the history of science at the University of Cambridge and an MA in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, I have worked in several museums in London, including the Ragged School Museum, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. I joined the National Maritime Museum in 2004.

Collections responsible for

Navigational instruments, including compasses, celestial and electronic navigation equipment, hand-held telescopes, charting equipment, drawing instruments, speed and depth measurement, meteorology and surveying.

Areas of research and interest

• History of navigation to the present day
• History of the British Board of Longitude
• Iconography of scientific instruments
• History of collecting and collections

Current NMM projects

I am currently working as part of a 5-year research project on the history of the British Board of Longitude, which operated from 1714 to 1828. The project is a collaboration between the National Maritime Museum and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

External fellowships/honorary positions/membership of professional bodies

• Associate of the Museums Association
• Committee of the Scientific Instrument Society
• History Committee of the Royal Institute of Navigation
• British Society for the History of Science

Select Publications

• D. Leggett & R. Dunn (eds), Re-Inventing the Ship (Ashgate, forthcoming)
• ‘Instruments at the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth’, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 106 (2010), pp. 34-41.
• ‘Sperimentare con l’acqua: lo sviluppo della navigazione e dei suoi strumenti’, in Emanuele Coco (ed.), L’arcipelago inquieto. Una reccolta di saggi interdisciplinari sull’evoluzionismo visto dal mare (2009), pp. 11-30
• 'Material Culture in the History of Science: case studies from the NMM', British Journal for the History of Science, March 2009, pp. 31-33; and Guest Editor for the three papers that follow this introduction
• The Telescope: A Short History (NMM, 2009)
• ‘Collecting and interpreting navigational instruments at the National Maritime Museum’, in W. Mörzer Bruyns, Sextants at Greenwich (OUP/NMM, 2009)
• ‘Made to measure: some thoughts on the design of scientific instruments’, in L. Taub & F. Wilmoth (eds.), The Whipple Museum of the History of Science. Instruments and Interpretations (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 121-137
• ‘Touching and cleaning: the routine work of an east London instrument supplier’, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 89 (2006), pp. 21-26
• ‘John Dee and Astrology in Elizabethan England’, in Clucas, S. (ed.), John Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in English Renaissance Thought (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006), pp. 85-94.
• ‘Scientific Instruments at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London’, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 79 (2003), pp.6-14
• ‘Sundials and the Arts’, in Higton, H., Sundials at Greenwich. A Catalogue of the Sundials, Horary Quadrants and Nocturnals in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (OUP/NMM, 2002), pp. 39-49
• British Globes to 1850: A Provisional Inventory (London, 1999); co-author with Helen Wallis
• ‘The future of collecting: lessons from the past’, in Knell, S.J. (ed.), Museums and the Future of Collecting (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1999), pp.30-36