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Microscope Museum Collection of antique microscopes and other
scientific instruments |
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Microscope
54 (J Parkes
& Son, retailed by Burgoyne, Burbidges & Co; Medical microscope; c.
1890) Based in Birmingham, England, Parkes produced good quality
microscopes and other scientific equipment and supplies from the mid-1800s
until well into the twentieth century. Recognizing the burgeoning market of
students and middle-class amateurs, they focused on inexpensive instruments. James
Parkes began his business in 1815 as a manufacturer of small items such
as jewellery cases and other metal devices. James’ only son, Samuel, became a
partner in about 1846, forming J Parkes and Son. By the 1850s, J.
Parkes and Son were producing a variety of microscopes. Their 1857 catalogue
prominently featured microscopes and prepared slides. Large numbers are known
of later microscope models that were manufactured by J Parkes and Son but
sold by other retailers. Samuel continued the business under the same name
after his father’s death in 1877. Samuel had only one son, also named Samuel.
That son, and a nephew, James Moulton, continued the business after the elder
Samuel died in 1896. Moulton left the partnership in 1908, and Samuel T.H.
Parkes continued alone for a number of additional years, at least until the
late 1920s. Microscope 54 came with its original wooden box and is most
probably a Parkes and Son’s medical microscope model from c. 1890
(Figure 1). However, this microscope is signed on the tube by the retailer ‘Burgoyne,
Burbidges & Co., London’, which was a company of manufacturing
chemists in London from c. 1714 until 1952. The company was established at 16
Coleman Street, London in c. 1714 and began a small-scale production of
glassware and chemicals. There is no further documentation of the history of
the company until 1864 when the business was being run by Thomas and
Frederick Burbidge under the name of Burgoyne, Burbidges & Squire. By
this time the firm was producing pharmaceuticals, photographic chemicals and
equipment, surgical instruments, medicines and perfumes. By 1875 the company
was known as Burgoyne, Burbidges, Cyriax & Farries. In 1892 the company
name reverted to Burgoyne, Burbidges & Co and the business moved to a
factory in East Ham in east London. It is not clear when this company started
selling microscopes. Figure
1.
Parkes and Son’s medical microscope as shown in an engraving from an 1880
issue of ‘The Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society’. References J.
Parkes and Son (http://microscopist.net/ParkesJ.html),
last accessed on 12.08.2020 Antique
Optics - Antieke JAs.Parkes & Son-microscoop (https://antiqueoptics.eu/home/landen/verenigd-koninkrijk/j-parkes-son/),
last accessed on 02.01.2021 LAST EDITED: 15.08.2020 |