The 2018 biennial conference of the European Society for the History of Science was held in London from 14 to 17 September.
The meeting was organised by the British Society for the History of Science, with the active collaboration of the Department of Science and Technology Studies of University College London and the Science Museum.
The meeting was based primarily in the Institute of Education of University College London, but sessions were also held at the Royal Institution and the Science Museum. The IoE is a Grade II* listed building designed by Sir Denys Lasdun and is ideally laid out to manage a meeting of the size of the ESHS. The other two venues are easily accessible by a short journey on the underground (the Piccadilly line links all three sites).
Since at least the seventeenth century London has been one of Europe’s, indeed one of the world’s leading cities for science, engineering and medicine. The city is home to many internationally leading learned societies (such as the Royal Society of London, the Royal Institution, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Astronomical Society, the Geological Society and the Linnean Society), as well as major museums (such as the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the British Museum and Royal Museums Greenwich), libraries and archives (the British Library, Wellcome Collections, Senate House Library), medical colleges (Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Surgeons), Engineering Institutions (the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers) and higher education institutions for teaching and research (University College London, King’s College London, Imperial College London, Queen Mary University of London). Virtually all of these organisations possess historically significant collections. To frame the core days of the meetings, visits were arranged to a selection of these sites, as well as walking tours of scientific London.