Maths in Museums: Museum of London Docklands

One of the great things about working as a consultant in the heritage sector is that it often takes me to museums, galleries and heritage sites that I might not otherwise have got around to visiting. This time it was the Museum of London Docklands, located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The museum itself is nestled towards the North-West extent of the Isle of Dogs, which is the peninsula delineated by that famous wiggle^[1] in London's section of the Thames. It played host to the West India Docks which first opened in 1802 and closed for business in 1980^[2] to be redeveloped into the area now known as Canary Wharf.

It's a fascinating museum and I was glad to have the opportunity to explore it but these thoughts come with the necessary (and common) caveat that they contain links between the history and study of mathematics and the story of London's Docklands that I picked up whilst browsing the museum, and that the museum itself does nothing (to my knowledge^[3]) to help visitors explore these links, either as part of their public offering or learning programme. My musings are necessarily limited in scope as I have only scraped the surface of what is undoubtedly a fascinating and deeply nuanced part of the history of  England's capital city.

A series of cast metal weights, labelled in pounds (lb). Photo taken by T.Briggs at the Museum of London Docklands

Visitors are directed to start their exploration of the museum on the top floor^[4] and work their way down. Early on, I noted some text on a panel which informed me that "goods were constantly weighed and measured" for all sorts of reasons, not least checking for evidence of theft or fraud. This theme returns throughout the museum and is possibly the most obvious place to find mathematics which is very easy to link back to school curricula^[5]: units of measurement, including comparing and converting between them, are not only a topic in themselves - and one that many students find difficult - but also something that feeds in to understanding aspects of many other mathematical topics. Weighing devices of varying designs and sizes are featured in the exhibition, and an opportunity to manipulate these (or replicas, of course) would offer some excellent mathematical hands-on learning. Understanding how these units of measurements came to be used, and comparing them with modern equivalents (and, indeed, discussing the relative merits of both and why they have changed) would be especially valuable as imperial measurements no longer feature explicitly in maths curricula.

An octant. Photo taken by T.Briggs at the Museum of London Docklands

When this theme reappears it's not just in relation to weighing goods: there are also tools used for navigational and mapping purposes, with the octant pictured above being just one example of many. I desperately wanted to play with these devices and find out how they work: such an opportunity would be an excellent chance for many people to gain a deeper, more physical understanding of the real-world applications of things which it is easy to take for granted in the modern world as they are automated and digitised.

There are also opportunities to study the etymology of words involved with measurement: perhaps surprisingly for some, a large part of many people's fear of mathematics is actually rooted in difficulties with language and vocabulary rather than with numbers. An opportunity to explore where the words come from and how they relate to each other is an opportunity to understand some mathematical ideas more keenly. An example exists in the tool featured above: an octant is so called because its shape is that of a sector (a 'slice' of a circle) which is one eighth of a circle. This can be compared to, for example, an octagon, which has the name because it has eight sides.

Part of the West India Docks, in miniature. Photo taken by T.Briggs at Museum of London Docklands.

Scale models and diagrams are everywhere throughout the museum, from blueprints of docks and buildings themselves to mini reproductions modelling an aspect of their function. I've been told in the past that whilst mathematics is used to produce these models, they are designed to help people understand the larger (or smaller) subjects that they represent and that exploring the mathematics involved would detract from this, but I disagree: more deeply understanding scales and related concepts is very much core to more effectively understanding the real world objects to which the models relate. Scale models are not just used to help casual visitors gain an overview of a concept; they are used by experts to more fully understand the thing about which they are an expert.

A scale model cutaway of (I think) North Greenwhich Underground Station. Photo taken by T.Briggs at the Museum of London Docklands

On that theme, I noticed a cutaway scale model of the Underground station at (I think) North Greenwich which was designed and built as part of the post-docklands regeneration of the area. The cutaway model clearly shows a parabolic curve that is very difficult to notice when visiting the real thing. The inclusion of this specific shape is no accident; it is an explicitly chosen design feature that contributes to the aesthetics of the station as well as it's structure: the parabola actively contributes to making it look nice and ensuring that it doesn't collapse. Such models are excellent ways to explore aspects of mathematics that are used in construction and architecture.

The images and commentary above represent just a few key mathematical themes that leapt out at me as I wandered the exhibitions, but there were so many more fascinating entrypoints to exploring something mathematical within the context of the museum's story: pulleys and lifting equipment, including a treadwheel that visitors could climb into and use to lift a bucket on a rope; facts and figures which hinted at many more stored in a file somewhere that could be used for statistical analysis at all levels; money, old and new, in terms of salaries, strikes over pay, and the value of rare and exotic goods; change over time in all sorts of contexts; timetabling of ships using crowded docks in order to avoid goods spoiling because of delays. There was even an activity encouraging visitors (mostly children, but who's going to tell?) to use blocks to build an arch/bridge.

As I've already mentioned, I'm barely even an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to the story of London's Docklands and I've found all sorts of mathematical threads to pull on: just image what the experts will be able to find.

Footnotes

1. Should I say "meander"? My secondary school geography is coming back to me slowly... [back]
2. This astonished me: I had no idea they ceased operation so recently. [back]
3. I'm happy to be corrected and will enthusiastically incorporate any corrections into this post. [back]
4. I don't have any access needs myself, but it did seem that the Museum of London Docklands had done a pretty good job of covering this base, which is often very difficult for museums located in historic buildings to achieve. [back]
5. Though 'curriculum links' are something that I tend to advise not to consider in the initial stages of developing maths-themed activities. [back]