The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
This film is part of Free
Future Scientists
With the subatomic world getting ever smaller, Waddingtons recognised that a microscope was just what was needed “for the man of the future.”
From the collection of:
Overview
What curious boy, or girl, can resist peering into the microcosms? Before chemistry sets went sadly out of fashion, in 1964 Waddingtons saw a market for microscopes among all the budding young scientists. More famous for games like Monopoly and Cleudo, Waddingtons also had an extensive educational series of which Future Scientists, the “complete micro-laboratory”, along with their chemistry sets, was a key part of.
Described as a high power microscope, the set also included twenty vials of various substances, all at a price 69/6 –roughly £3.50 in current money. This was an innocuous alternative to chemistry sets which could still produce explosions. The decline in sales of these may have something to do with the gradual omission of such interesting stuff as sodium cyanide and uranium dust, or anything else that the prospective terrorist could use. Although invariably aimed at boys, products like Future Scientists also launched many girls as well onto a scientific path, as testified by distinguished British engineer Dr Dame Sue Ion, whose own career was inspired by experimenting with chemistry sets back in the 1960s.