Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

 

    

Microscope 244 (unassigned maker; Society of Arts type microscope; c. 1880s)

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Microscope 244 was probably made in England and has a typical English construction based on the format of the Society of Arts awarded microscope from Robert Field (see microscope 29). The maker is unknow. The instrument came with its original wooden box, which included a label with the inscription “Samuel Beckett, Lewes. Purchased at the sale of effects, formerly belonging to the Mechanics Institute, on 17th Oct. 1892”. There are records of a Samuel Beckett living in Lewes, who was a lessee of a shop at 1 Fisher Street in that city in Sussex. This could have been Samuel James Beckett (1849 – 1933) or his father Samuel Beckett (1826 – 1903). The microscope probably belonged to the Lewes Mechanics Institute that existed in the city between 1825 and 1884. Mechanics’ Institutes aimed to provide formal education for mechanics in the science and arts of their trades, and many were founded all along England’s south coast, in Brighton, Lewes, Arundel, Portsmouth and Southampton to name a few.

 

LAST EDITED: 12.03.2022