16 January 2025 – Rebekah Higgit, Principal Curator of Science, National Museums Scotland – 7.30 pm at the Holy Trinity Church

The Ilay-Glynne dial, a magnificent early 18th-century equinoctial sundial, was recently acquired by and put on display at National Museums Scotland. It was made by Richard Glynne for Archibald Campbell, the Earl of Ilay (subsequently 3rd Duke of Argyll). This talk will introduce the dial, its maker and its owner, exploring both the London world of scientific instrument production, within which Glynne worked, and Ilay’s interests in science, industry and agriculture after the Act of Union. It has been argued that Ilay’s extensive powers of patronage, exercised in universities and other Scottish institutions, helped lay the ground for the Scottish Enlightenment. This talk shows how this reflected his personal taste for hands-on experiment, instrumentation and practical ability as well as family and political interests.

Dr Rebekah Higgitt is an historian of science and Principal Curator of Science at National Museums Scotland. She completed her PhD in history of science at Imperial College London in 2004 and has previously worked as an academic and curator at the University of Edinburgh, Royal Museums Greenwich and the University of Kent. Her work has focused on the material, literary and visual cultures of science, the relationships between science, government and the public, and histories of astronomy and navigation in the 17th to 19th centuries. She has been involved in funded research projects on the history of the Board of Longitude (AHRC 2010-15), on early modern sites of knowledge and practice in London (Leverhulme, 2017-20), observatory sites and networks (AHRC, 2021-23) and digital modelling of data on the lives and work of scientific instrument makers, 1550-1914 (AHRC, 2021-23). Her publications include Recreating Newton (2007), Finding Longitude (2014), Maskelyne: Astronomer Royal (2014) and Metropolitan Science (2024).