Selfridge's Seismograph

The British broadcaster ITV and the American television drama producer Masterpiece (WGBH Boston, formerly known as Masterpiece Theatre) recently created an eight‐part television drama series about the life of the founder of the famous department store, Selfridge’s, on Oxford Street in London, England. The series, entitled “Mr. Selfridge,” was broadcast in weekly episodes from January 2013 in Britain, and on PBS in the United States beginning 31 March 2013, and was well received by the audiences in both countries. For several years, Selfridge’s store housed a Milne–Shaw seismograph with which the owner, the American, H. Gordon Selfridge, used to create media publicity whenever a major earthquake occurred worldwide. At least four photographs of the installation survive together with an image of an information display chart showing global earthquakes detected by the instrument between 1932 and 1934.