Appointment-only museums are a breed of their own. Having to make an appointment
automatically puts up barriers to entry that public spaces do not. People can question whether they are
qualified to visit, and it is not always easy to tell in advance why a museum
is appointment-only. While there is
a range of reasons for it, the most common reasons are down to security and
manpower.
I recently visited the British Optical Association Museum that
is appointment only because their display spaces are within the private offices
of the College of Optometrists on Craven Street, very close to Charing Cross. Having to book an appointment can be
off-putting, particularly for a non-medical specialist, but I would urge
readers to go ahead and do it.
Museum staff are always delighted to share their collections and knowledge,
and the tours here are led by the curator, Neil Handley. What’s more, the College of
Optometrists seem to have enormously friendly and welcoming staff across the
board so I didn’t feel like an intruder at any time during my visit.
The British Optical Association (BOA) Museum is named for an
organisation that no longer exists, having been absorbed into what is now the
College of Optometrists in 1980. The
BOA was founded in 1895 and the museum was set up in 1901 as a form of
marketing for the profession. At
this time, members of the medical profession argued that the work that
opticians do should be the preserve of medical doctors, and the BOA was
organised to professionalise the workforce. Their quest for legitimacy came to fruition with the 1958
Opticians Act, and now opticians and ophthalmologists work together amicably.
The display heavily emphasises the social history of
eyewear, eye health, and optometry.
There is a display in the entryway of the building of the glasses of notable
people, including Dr. Samuel Johnson, writer C. P. Snow, and Matthew Bellamy of
Muse. The bulk of the exhibitions are
in the basement (accessible via lift) and the curator guides all visitors
through the displays, giving narrative and additional background information
tailored to his audience.
The first item of the collection that Handley drew my
attention to is a drawing of Hermann von Helmholtz undertaking the first
non-invasive eye test on a young woman.
Handley explains that this was a sea change for eye health as it made it
socially acceptable for women to have eye checks. This is part of the ongoing story of the development of
eyewear charted in the collections.
Glasses and contact lenses have steadily increased in popularity in
modern times. Probably invented in
the 13th century, the oldest pair of spectacles in the BOA
collection dates to the 16th century. They were used by members of religious orders, the only
sector of society that were both literate and had the funds available for
eyewear.
Glasses were an external sign of disability, and evidence of
reduced stigma is evident in the 20th century, particularly with
the explosion of fashion eyewear from the 1960s onward. Of the c. 1000 visitors per year, the
museum is increasingly visited by design students looking for inspiration. A portion of the display is dedicated
to fashionable, outrageous, and innovative eyewear that ties directly to the
book “Cult Eyewear” by the curator (available from a range of stockists). A most curious fact is that sunglasses
were originally invented in the 18th century in Venice to help
people deal with the glare off the water, but somehow this invention was
forgotten until the 20th century when sunglasses were reinvented by
Hollywood stars shielding their eyes from the bright lights of the film
studios. Original Venetian
sunglasses are on display with green tinted glass made in Murano.
There are loads of fascinating items on display, including
the original 1949 range of NHS glasses.
There were initially 18 different designs on offer, but this was soon
cut down as it proved to be too much choice for patients. One of the highlights is a collection of
gruesome glass eyes. The museum
founder, John Sutcliffe, was also the founder of the Army Spectacle Depot where
false eyes were made during the First World War. Many items in the collection have come from opticians
closing their shops and offering old stock, display models, and optometry
equipment to the museum.
In total the collection numbers approximately 20,000 items,
all of which are able to be stored on-site. There is little space for many of the larger items, so these
are mainly stored in dismantled condition. When Handley arrived at the museum 15 years ago, there was
no display space, so the BOA Museum was an early adopter of on-line exhibitions. All of the
collections are digitised and available to view through their website. Interesting areas of the collection include
eye-protection pieces, one of the first ever set of contact lenses made in
Britain, some surprisingly beautiful eyebaths, opera glasses, and even cockade
brisé fans with small lenses at the centre so that Georgian ladies could peep
through them without appearing too nosy.
The College of Optometrists is the professional body for
opticians in the UK and the museum reflects the role that the College plays in
public health. The museum has been
involved in campaigns to raise awareness of the impact of smoking on eye
health, as well as the dangers of using expired eye makeup. Eye checks that opticians undertake are
not just for corrective prescriptions, but can test for a range of other
maladies such as diabetes. The
museum also collects items that document disability and show attitudes towards
blind people.
One potential issue with tour-led museum visits is there is
often no opportunity for lone exploration of displays. Handley accommodates this by allowing
visitors to look around after his tour is complete, which is thoughtful. I spent most of this time trying on the
many historic pairs of glasses in the handling drawers and watching the
generally hilarious fashion films from the Pathé archive of women
modelling glasses in the 1950s and ‘60s (one of them features all the women
emerging from behind a small potted plant, for no narrative reason). There’s also some very interesting
archival footage of the museum in the 1930s and 1960s in its previous location
in Earls Court.
Because display space in the museum is limited, much of it
is designed to be flexible so that items can be rotated in and out. I was particularly taken with the
creative use of the street-facing windows as display cases. The museum is in the basement of the
building, but has windows and light wells which have been protected with
UV-filters and converted to a secure case. This cleverly creates display space while respecting the
fabric of the Grade II* listed building.
