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Science and Industry Museum

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Science and Industry Museum

The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, England, traces the development of science, technology and industry with emphasis on the city's achievements in these fields. The museum is part of the Science Museum Group, a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, having merged with the National Science Museum in 2012.

There are extensive displays on the theme of transport (cars, railway locomotives and rolling stock), power (water, electricity, steam and gas engines), Manchester's sewerage and sanitation, textiles, communications and computing.

The museum is an Anchor Point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage and is on the site of the world's first passenger railway station – Manchester Liverpool Road – which opened as part of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830. The railway station frontage and 1830 warehouse are both Grade I listed.

The museum was called the North Western Museum of Science and Industry when it opened in 1969 in temporary premises on Grosvenor Street in Chorlton-on-Medlock. It had close ties with the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology, having mostly grown out of the Department of History of Science & Technology, and UMIST's Richard L. Hills was the museum's first lecturer in charge.

In 1978, Greater Manchester Council purchased the earliest part of the former Liverpool Road station from British Rail, which had been closed in 1975. The council paid the nominal sum of £1 for the site. The museum opened at this site on 15 September 1983 and later expanded to include the whole of the former station.

Since 2007 the museum has organised an annual science festival in Manchester.

In 2014, Sally MacDonald became the director. MacDonald left her role as head of collections at University College London and succeeded Jean Franczyk as director.

In 2021, the permanent closure of the Air and Space Hall was announced. Objects were returned to their original owners, and those owned by the museum displayed in future exhibits.

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