The Royal Panopticon:Victorian Museums and the Popularization of Science

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In this paper I will examine the short history of the Royal Panopticon and evaluate its significance as a science museum in the post-Great Exhibition era. Its existence raises a series of questions for those of us studying the popularization of science in nineteenth century Britain. Why house objects drawn from the world of cutting edge science inside a building that imitated exotic architecture connoting anything but modernity? Why build an institution dedicated to art and science in the middle of the London entertainment district in Leicester Square? What does the Royal Panopticon tell us about the other science museums and their relationship to the history of the popularization science? Ephemeral institutions of science like the Royal Panopticon can tell us a great deal about the role of science in Victorian culture, and how spectacle became an integral component of presenting knowledge to the public, or what was referred to by contemporaries as "rational amusement."