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Microscope Museum Collection of antique microscopes and other
scientific instruments |
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Microscope
205 (C. Baker;
medical microscope; c. 1880)
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 205 is signed with ‘Baker, 244 High Holborn, London’,
being dated to c. 1880. This instrument was named as ‘The Medical Microscope’
in a Baker’s catalogue of the time and was described as “A superior-finished
microscope on the Hartnack model” (Figure 1). The
microscope came with its original wooden box.
Figure
1.
Baker’s medical microscope as pictured in a catalogue of the firm from the
1880s References Charles
Baker (https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Charles_Baker), last accessed on
12.08.2020 Student's
microscope by C. Baker, 244 High Holborn (https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8665/students-microscope-by-c-baker-244-high-holborn), last accessed on
13.08.2021 Compound
microscope by Baker, ¾ 19th C (https://www.bononiaemicroscope.com/en/the-microscopes/england/41-baker.html), last accessed on
13.08.2021 LAST
EDITED: 02.10.2022 |
