The Saltaire Collection, which is housed at the college, are partners in a major National Science Museum (NSM) Project!

The project is called ‘The Congruence Engine: Digital Tools for New Collections-Based Industrial Histories’ and it aims to develop new digital tools that will help reveal connections between different museum collections and with other sources of information. It’s inspired by the word ‘congruence’, which means to create or seek out similarities, points of contact, coincidences,and links. The first year of the project will focus on the textile industry’s history. The project is led by the Science Museum Group and is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and other partners of the project include Bradford Industrial Museum, British Film Industry, Historic England and the National Archives amongst others.

The first two days of the conference that launched the project were held in Salts Mill and Saltaire. Volunteers led a tour of the village for participants and gave a presentation about some interesting items the Saltaire Collection holds. Here is an extract from the NSM blog about the conference: 

‘Between 9th and 11th February 2022, we held the opening conference of Congruence Engine in Bradford. In doing this, we situated the first in-person event in a well-known hub of Britain’s historic textile industry – an industry that is also the project’s first thematic focus. Spending two and a half days between Salts Mill in Saltaire and Lister Mills in Manningham.'

-Helen Graham, and Arran Rees

The Collection have provided data to the project and two Saltaire researchers, Colin Coates and Caroline Perry are working with the project team on a pilot piece that will explore some of the barriers experienced by researchers when seeking resources that are in widespread locations.

Well done to everyone involved! This is a very exciting project and we're proud that the Saltaire Collection is a part of it.