The Department of History and Philosophy of Science developed around the Whipple Collection of Scientific Instruments and Books as a result of sustained initiatives to bring teaching of the subject to scientists and others.

Scientist advocates Joseph Needham (1900-1995) and Walter Pagel (1898-1983) launched a lecture series under the auspices of the Faculty Boards of Biology, and Physics and Chemistry in 1936. In the same year, the Cambridge Philosophical Society organised an exhibition of the University’s historic apparatus, models, manuscripts and images. Local industrialist Robert Steward Whipple presented his own collection together with an endowment fund in 1944, on the condition that the University set up a museum for the lot, fully integrated with teaching and research. Accommodation was provided in Corn Exchange Street 1951-9 and Perse Hall on Free School Lane from 1959 onwards.

In 1946, the History of Science Committee was established, chaired by historian Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979) and given broad control of teaching and collections. Its name changed to the History and Philosophy of Science Committee in 1956 on amalgamation with the Committee of Management for the subject History and Philosophy of Science in the Natural Sciences Tripos. The department was created in 1972, as a department under the direction of the General Board, governed by a Syndicate. The Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, funded by the Wellcome Trust, which had been established the year before, became a sub-department. In 1996 the Syndicate was replaced by a Board. The Wellcome Unit closed in 1998.

Initially, from 1951 onwards, teaching was part of Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos. In 1959, a Certificate in History and Philosophy of Science taught to third year undergraduates was created and with the reform of the tripos in the mid-1960s this became a complete Part II within the Natural Sciences Tripos. A course for postgraduates, begun as a Diploma in 1971, became the MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science in 1977. As an interdisciplinary field, the nature and content of courses, lectures and research have been vigorously debated among academics in both Humanities and Sciences down the decades.

The first lecturer in Philosophy of Science was Norwood Russell Hanson (1924-1967) of the Department of Philosophy, appointed in 1953. He was replaced in 1957 by Gerd Buchdahl (1914-2001). Of pre-eminent importance in the development of the discipline, Buchdahl was Secretary of the History and Philosophy of Science Committee from 1959-74 and, from 1972, the first Head of Department. He was made a reader in 1966 and retired in 1981. Other individuals appointed to lectureships in the 1960s and 70s included Mary Hesse (1924-2016), Robert Young (1935-2019), Peter Harman (1943-2014) and Nick Jardine. The first part-time curator of the Whipple Museum was A. Rupert Hall (1920-2009). Michael Hoskin (1930-2021) replaced him in 1959 and was succeeded by David Bryden in 1969.