Jewellery Centre set to sparkle at Boulton event

University News Last updated 16 September 2009

The Jewellery Industry Innovation Centre (JIIC), part of Birmingham City University will be playing a central role in an event being held later this week celebrating the life and work of Birmingham entrepreneur and inventor Matthew Boulton.

The Discovery Day is being held at Aston University tomorrow (Thursday 17). JIIC will be demonstrating some of the processes involved in creating replica candlesticks for the current Matthew Boulton exhibition ‘Selling what all the world desires' at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Gay Penfold, Centre Manager of the JIIC, said: ‘Our brief was to recreate replicas which would provide visitors to the exhibition with the opportunity to examine closely the intricacies of the design of the candlestick, and to be able to touch them. There is a great deal of opportunity for the technologies that we used on this project to be used further to recreate other objects so that the museum visitors' experience is enhanced. We look forward to demonstrating some of these processes to visitors on Thursday."

The 2009 marks the Bicentenary of the death of Boulton, a leading figure of the Industrial Revolution. He was instrumental in founding Birmingham's Assay Office and developing steam technology with his colleague James Watt. He was also a key member of the Lunar Society, a group prominent in the arts and science.

For further information about the Discover Day, please email events@aston.ac.uk or call 0121 204 4552.

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