Museums
The period following the Second World War was a fertile time for British science, design, engineering and manufacturing. This much is made clear by a new exhibition at London’s Science Museum that offers the futuristic character of Dan Dare as an emblem of the spirit of the times.
Dan Dare, which appeared as a comic strip in the Eagle, is complemented with examples of innovation during the post-war period, when industry reinvented itself for peacetime, often taking wartime advances and creating and remodelling industries on them. It is, according to the show, a “lost world” of British invention.
Engineers feature prominently, including a trio of knights: Sir Frank Whittle, Sir Bernard Lovell and Sir Christopher Cockerell – responsible respectively for the jet engine, Jodrell Bank radio telescope and the hovercraft.
The state played a big role in industry at the time.
In the 1940s, the creation of the welfare state – the NHS came into being in 1948 – relied on new biomedical technologies such as penicillin, and adapting wartime aircraft manufacturing capacity to build high-quality aluminium prefab housing.
Many engineers still worked in the defence sector even after 1945, and the development of Britain’s nuclear deterrent kept them gainfully employed during the Cold War.
The show offers an intriguing reminder of a time when Britain was a hive of industry and innovation.
Following the Second World War, the country sought a new era of peace and prosperity for its citizens, with technology underpinning the boom. Many British inventions were successfully exported around the globe.
The exhibition is a reminder of the role that engineering played in developing the UK following the shock of war. In the wake of the financial crisis, the challenges we face today are perhaps not so dissimilar.
Again, the country and its manufacturers must to an extent reinvent themselves to tackle climate change, security and globalisation.
The world has changed since Dan Dare’s heyday but this exhibition reminds us of a futuristic, adventurous chutzpah that could well prove of value to us in modernity.