The disciplines of Science and Medicine are well represented within our holdings. With an Irish connection, this material provides a valuable research resource and underscores the considerable contribution of local academics to advances made in these fields. Below is an example of some of the material we hold in Special Collections & Archives hold pertaining to the subjects of Science, Engineering and Medicine.
Distinguished library of early medical works and medical history belonging to
Dr Samuel Simms (d. 1967) of Belfast.
Once described as one of the most selective and extensive of collections in private hands, the Simms Medical collection is an outstanding assemblage of works concerning the practice of medicine and medical history.
This collection can be searched via our online Library Catalogue.
Belfast General Hospital, a history of the General Hospital of Belfast, also "a chronological record of interesting events, as illustrative of the progress and growing prosperity of Belfast from the earliest times". The plates from within book may be browsed on our digital pages.
Collection of scientific papers and notebooks, memoranda, lectures, correspondence etc of James Thomson (1822- 1892), Professor of Engineering at Queen’s College, Belfast, 1857-1873. Various topics are highlighted in the collection reflecting Professor Thomson’s wide range of research interests. These include such areas as fluid motion, the formation of river bars, ventilation, atmospheric circulation, the atmosphere of Jupiter and the freezing and melting of solid, liquid and gaseous states of matter, which he investigated with his Belfast colleague, Thomas Andrews (1813-85).
MS 13 Thompson Collection listing
A small collection of papers relating to Irish born physicist Albert Campbell (1862-1953). Campbell was a pioneer in electrical science, especially in the fields of alternating current measurements and standards.
Campbell was born at Ballynagard House, near Derry. He was educated at Londonderry Academical Institution, Magee College, University of Edinburgh, Queen’s College Belfast and Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge where he read mathematics, physics and chemistry. At Cambridge, he was a pupil of Dr (later Sir Richard) Glazebrook.
After leaving Cambridge, Campbell served on the staff of the Faraday House Standardising, Testing and Training Institution. Soon after the foundation of the National Physical Laboratory in 1901, he was appointed to the position of principal assistant, under the leadership of Richard Glazebrook. He established the department concerned with measurements of inductance and capacitance and related quantities. The main body of Campbell’s work, including his primary standard of mutual inductance (1907), was carried out at the NPL until he retired from its research laboratory in 1918. After his resignation, he continued his work in his own small laboratory with homemade instruments. It was from here that he devised the absolute method of determination of the ohm, which was subsequently elaborated at the NPL.
Campbell was awarded the Duddell Medal of the Physical Society in 1925.
Science, Politics and Society in Early Nineteenth-Century Ireland by 
Science and Technology in Nineteenth-Century Ireland by 
Chiefly a collection of scientific papers and correspondence written by, or addressed to, Thomas Andrews. Born in Belfast in 1813, Thomas Andrews was an eminent chemist and physicist of European reputation. Educated at the Belfast Academical Institution, he received his formal training at university in Glasgow, Paris and Dublin as well as in Edinburgh where he was awarded his M.D in 1835. He spent most of his career in the employ of Queen’s College Belfast where he occupied the positions of College Vice President and Professor of Chemistry from 1849-79, being notable for his work on the liquefaction of gases, which eventually led to such inventions as the domestic refrigerator, and for proving that ozone is a form of oxygen. He died in Belfast on November 26, 1885.
MS 2 Andrews Collection listing
A collection of family papers and publications relating to several members and generations of the Megaw family. In terms of strength in the discipline of Science, notable members of the family include Major-General Sir John Megaw (1874-1958), an authority on tropical medicine, the Crystallographer Dr Helen Dick Megaw (1907-2002), and engineer T.M. Megaw (b. 1908).
Included within this collection:
Study entitled India heading for disaster: a study of the problem of overpopulation in India, by Major-General Sir John Megaw, former Director General of the Indian Medical Service (MS53/2/1)
Material, including schedules of work and several hundred photographs and negatives, relating to the construction of Craigavon Bridge, Londonderry (MS53/6,7)
Scientific papers by Dr Helen Megaw (MS53/15)
Medicine, Health and Irish Experiences of Conflict, 1914-45 by 
