Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

 

    

Microscope 140 (Charles Baker; histological microscope; 1910s)

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The business of Baker was founded in London in about 1765, Charles Baker, who was born in 1820, giving his name to the company from about 1851. When Charles Baker died in 1894 the firm continued under the same name but run by the Curties family until it became, in 1936, Charles Baker & Co. and subsequently, sometime in the 1940s, C. Baker Ltd. The firm’s address mostly given as 244 High Holborn, London (but sometimes 243 and 245, sometimes in combination). The firm produced optical and surgical instruments. In 1963, Vickers acquired the C Baker Ltd microscope factory and a new company called Vickers Instruments was formed. Microscope 140 is signed with ‘C. Baker, 244 High Holborn, London’ and has the serial number 6218, being dated to the 1910s. This instrument is known as the new model histological microscope in the firm’s catalogue from 1911 (Figure 1). The microscope contains also a Mayall pattern mechanical stage signed with ‘C. Baker, 244 High Holborn, London’ (Figure 1).

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Figure 1. New model histological microscope (left) and Mayall pattern mechanical stage (right) as pictured in the Charles Baker’s catalogue from 1911.

 

LAST EDITED: 25.10.2020