Collection of papers relating to the apprenticeship and employment of Brian Braithwaite in the Mass Spectrometry department at AEI Ltd, including an Apprentice Certificate, an Instruction Manual for the MS2 mass spectrometer, and a binder containing seven research reports on the development of the MS2, 1953-1963.

Brian Braithwaite’s papers illustrate the training of electronics technicians and engineers in the second half of the 20th century. This helps us to tell the story of Manchester’s transformation in the later 20th century onwards into a ‘City of Ideas’ with a basis in the knowledge economy and high-tech industries.

Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Co Ltd developed the world’s first commercially available mass spectrometer, the MS1. The MS2 was a further development of the MS1, improving the mass resolution of the instrument.

The apprentice certificate locates Brian Braithwaite in the period when the engineering industry was transitioning into the development of new product lines coming out of the scientific research conducted during the Second World War. The certificate gives a context to the MS2 instruction manual, which Braithwaite worked on as a development engineer, and the set of MetroVicks research reports issued between 1953 and 1955, which Braithwaite used during his apprenticeship and as background to the development work carried out as a development engineer.

The Science Museum Group holds an example of an MS8 mass spectrometer in the object collection, but no example of an MS2. This collection helps to document the earlier stages in the development of mass spectrometry instrumentation at Metropolitan-Vickers and AEI.

This collection supplements other records from Dr Jack Blears (YA2001.129), who worked on the development of mass spectrometers at MetroVicks and AEI, as well as in the MetroVicks company archive (YA2003.50). The main archive for Metropolitan-Vickers includes images of the range of mass spectrometers that Brian Braithwaite worked on.