How has touch shaped the way people understood the world across history? Join historians from Lancaster University and University of the Arts London for an interactive afternoon exploring the histories of touch through short talks, sensory activities and hands-on encounters with historical objects.

This free workshop suitable for all ages brings together historians and museum collections to examine how touch has informed medicine, travel, spirituality, disability, and everyday experience across history. Through a series of short talks, you will be introduced to fascinating stories including touch and surgery, Victorian spiritualism, tactile learning for blind people, and the sensory experiences of travel.

The workshop will feature two interactive activities:

• A demonstration of Henry Moyes’s eighteenth-century tactile device, designed to help blind people perform mathematical calculations.

• A sensory ‘black box’ challenge using objects from the museum’s handling collection. Participants will explore hidden objects through touch alone before sketching what they believe they have encountered.

Short talks will be by:

• Michael Brown: Touch and Nineteenth Century Surgery

• Helen Victoria Murray: Victorian Spiritualism

• Alexander Wragge-Morley: Henry Moyes and James Gough

• Ross Cameron: Touch and Travel

This workshop takes place at Lancaster City Museum on 27 May, 2-4pm. Book your ticket here.