Revolutions, Reactions and Relationships: Science in the Historic Collections of Balliol College

17 May - 17 June 2026 (see opening times)
Balliol Historic Collections Centre, St Cross Church, St Cross Rd, OX1 3TP

Balliol Library warmly invites everyone to a new exhibition this Trinity Term, ‘Revolutions, Reactions and Relationships: Science in the Historic Collections of Balliol College’, held at Balliol’s Historic Collections Centre in St Cross Church.

About the exhibition

Beneath the Dining Hall at Balliol College there was once a laboratory, ‘heated by an enormous Bunsen burner’, where chemists tested the explosion of gases. In the Library are books by an astronomer with a copper nose and drunken pet moose. One mathematical alumnus had to flee Venice after spying on the secrets of glass-making there. Another created a computer program using matchboxes and beads. These, and many other fascinating tales, feature in the Library’s Trinity Term exhibition.

From a slow start to numerous Nobel prize winners, the author of the ‘most inspiring science book of all time’ and the person who may have prevented more cancer deaths than anyone else to date, the exhibition explores several centuries of scientific endeavour at Balliol.

Opening times:

  • Thursday 30 April, 11.00am—4.00pm
  • Friday 8 May, 11.00am—4.00pm
  • Sunday 17 May, 11.00am—4.00pm
  • Thursday 21 May, 3.00pm—7.00pm
  • Sunday 31 May, 11.00am—4.00pm
  • Thursday 4 June, 3.00pm—7.00pm
  • Monday 8 June, 11.00am—4.00pm
  • Wednesday 17 June, 3.00pm—7.00pm

The exhibition is also open by appointment: please email library@​balliol.​ox.​ac.​uk.