Your Australian museum is perhaps the Macleay Museum which has a history
of science section. They can be visited at
http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/macleay/welcome.htm

There are several other museums specifically devoted to the history of
science. For example, in the UK there are two academic museums: the
Whipple Museum in Cambridge and the Museum of the History of Science in
Oxford. You can visit our Oxford home page at http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk.

Florence has the Museo di Storia della Scienza at
http://galileo.imss.firenze.it/

Although the national museums of science and technology often have major
collections and displays, the history of science also appears in less
expected places. For example, try Teylers museum in Haarlem
(http://www.nedpunt.nl/teylersmuseum/engels/hal.html)

Finally, I guess you know the Harvard collection of historic scientific
instruments
(http://fas-gopher.harvard.edu/~peabody/museum_scientific.html)?

Stephen Johnston
Museum of the History of Science
Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3AZ
[log in to unmask]
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/