Museum of Science and Industry Tours and Activities

Manchester's Museum of Science and Technology (MOSI) is the place to go to discover this city's amazing scientific and technology journey. Manchester became England's second city because of the rapid technological advances of the Industrial Revolution. So you could say that it was science that helped it to leap from quiet market town, to bustling modern metropolis. The MOSI tells that story through those iconic inventions that are stamped 'Made in Manchester' – and the inventors behind them.The Museum is located in the Castlefield district of Manchester. This is the oldest part of town, with a ruined Roman castle and relics of the Victorian industrial age. Many of Manchester's canals and railways congregate around today's Museum. That's because the MOSI is actually based in a place of critical importance to the Industrial Revolution – the Liverpool Road railway station.This was the very first railway built anywhere in the world, opening in 1830, and connecting Manchester to the sea-port of Liverpool. MOSI has replicas of the first steam engines to travel on this route, for you to ride on and experience the thrill of those early days of steam. But wandering around the museum itself shows how Manchester played an important role in many more fields than just rail travel.Energy was a big part of the industrial transformation, and MOSI covers it in all its forms – water, steam, gas and coal. All sorts of engines are on show, many of them invented or built here, and some of them still working. The Museum also displays many of the scientific instruments that the city had a hand in designing – from barometers of the 18th century, to surveying and engineering instruments of the 19th, to the electron microscopes and mass spectrometers that revealed the inner workings of matter. The world's first computer, 'Baby', was built at Manchester's Victoria University in 1948. A working replica of this so-called 'Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine' is also located here. And there are further displays of the works of inspirational scientists like James Joules, of energy fame and Ernest Rutherford, who first split the atom. And with its hands-on approach, throwing you into the mechanics of technical wonders and scientific breakthroughs, the MOSI is something of an inspiration itself.