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SIS Bulletin Issue 76 Scientific Instrument Society Bulletin March No. 76 2003 Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society ISSN 0956-8271 For Table of Contents, see back cover President Gerard Turner Vice-President Howard Dawes Honary Committee Gloria Clifton, Chairman Alexander Crum Ewing, Secretary Simon Cheifetz,Treasurer Willem Hackmann, Editor Peter de Clercq, Meetings Secretary Ron Bristow Tom Lamb Tom Newth Alan Stimpson Sylvia Sumira Trevor Waterman Membership and Administrative matters The Executive Officer (Wg Cdr Geoffrey Bennett) 31 High Street Stanford in the Vale Tel: 01367 710223 Faringdon Fax: 01367 718963 Oxon SN7 8LH e-mail: [email protected] See outside back cover for information on membership Editorial Matters Dr.Willem Hackmann Sycamore House The PLaying Close Tel: 01608 811110 Charlbury Fax: 01608 811971 Oxon OX7 3QP e-mail: [email protected] Society’s Website www.sis.org.uk Advertising See “summary of Advertising Services’ panel elsewhere in this Bulletin. Frther enquiries to the Executive Officer, Design and printing Jane Bigos Graphic Design 95 Newland Mill Tel: 01993 209224 Witney Fax: 01993 209255 Oxon OX28 3SZ e-mail: [email protected] Printed by The Flying Press Ltd,Witney The Scientific Instrument Society is Registered Charity No. 326733 © The Scientific Instrument Society 2003 Editorial Turning Over a New Leaf pretty Cotswold town near where I live. like to share with us about how to improve This Bulletin is the first issue produced by the site will be gratefully received. I am this team, and I hope that it meets your always amazed by what a rich fount of infor- This has been an eventful few months for approval.The quality has not been reduced. mation the internet is, and am particularly the Bulletin. It was decided by the SIS Costs have been cut primarily by making interested in projects putting scanned sci- Committee that in these competitive times more use of computer technology and by entific instruments catalogues on internet. a means had to be found to reduce pro- using local facilities. In the process, your duction cost in order to give the member- One such project is by Steve Turner of the Editor is on a steep learning curve! ship best value for money. Regretfully, this Smithsonian Institution. The Max Planck Changing our facilities has given me the could only be achieved by relocating the Institute in Berlin already has a large num- opportunity to rethink the Bulletin’s graphic design and printing from London ber of trade catalogues on the net on appearance.I still believe that the three-col- to the provinces.And thus has come about vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/library/trade cat- umn lay out is the most flexible, but am the end of our association with Lithoflow, alogues.html. Paolo Brenni is involved. It is pleased to receive comments from mem- our London printers. For more than a suggested that the links of scanned trade bers about any aspect of our journal. decade Roger Hill, Ron Atherton and other catalogues should be accessible at the members of Lithoflow have looked after us We are still analysing the best way forward homepage of the Scientific Instrument with great efficiency, and it is with some about digitalizing the Bulletin’s back num- Commission, probably together with the trepidation that we have moved from this bers and should soon be able to make a Online Register of Scientific Instruments.It safe anchorage into the unknown.Our new decision, hopefully before the June issue is is quite amazing how much information we production team is Jane Bigos, graphic due.The Society’s web page is another item will have at our fingertips. designer, and the Flying Press at Witney, a drawing our attention.Any ideas you would Collectors with Unusual Objects required for the AGM For this year’s AGM on Wednesday the 2nd July we have departed from our customary three speakers.We have two speakers, Emily Winterburn and James McCormick, and instead of a third speaker we decided to have in this half hour slot an ‘open’session for members to present items from their own collections or mystery objects. If you would like to present an object, please contact our Meetings Secretary,Dr Peter de Clercq on [email protected] or four unusual objects could be presented in this way. Obituary Arthur Davis Baynes-Cope Pioneer in the study and restoration of American research. Baynes-Cope was a fel- globes and a long-standing member of our low of the Society of Archivists and of the Society, died on 27th February 2002. He Society of Antiquaries of London, a gave the Society’s Annual Invitation Lecture Liveryman of the Stationers’ Company, a for 2000.A chemist,he was an expert in the some-time member of the Architectural field of document examination and conser- Advisory panel of Westminster Abbey,and a vation at the British Museum for over 20 former chairman of the United Kingdom years. He is best known for his pioneering Group of the International Institute for work on the structure and conservation of Conservation. He was a fellow of the Royal Bulletin’s Cover globes and his monograph, The Study and Society of Chemistry and a member of the Conservation of Globes (1985), is still the British Standards working parties on the The illustration on the March cover is of an main work of reference on the subject. storage and exhibition of archival docu- old photograph of a group of instruments More popular, but equally authoritative, is ments (BS 5454) and on the binding and on loan from Florence for the Special Loan his Caring for Books (1981) still in print. treatment of books (BS 4971).He took early Collection of Scientific Apparatus, exhibit- Born in London in 1928, Baynes-Cope was retirement from the British Museum in ed in South Kensington in 1876,which fea- educated at the Stationers’Company School 1984, and moved to a cottage in Stanton, tures in this issue in the fourth and final at Hornsey, and then at Trinity College, Suffolk, where he died.When I was a con- part of Peter de Clercq’s papers on this Dublin, gaining a degree in Chemistry in servation student in London Baynes-Cope remarkable event.The physical devices are 1951. His first employment was at the taught me paper conservation, or rather from the Accademia del Cimento,and these Laboratory of the Government Chemist.He that it should only be tackled by experts, are complemented by astronomical, math- contributed to showing that Piltdown Man which was good advice. He had a wicked, ematical and time-measurement instru- was a modern hoax.In 1960 he transferred dry sense of humour and was dedicated to ments from the Royal Institute of ‘Studii to the Research Laboratory of the British his field of expertise. We renewed our Superiori’. Today these evocative instru- Museum with responsibility for the investi- acquaintance when he received the ments are exhibited in the Istituto e Museo gation of artefacts made of animal and veg- Society’s medal, of which he was very di Storia della Scienza in Florence. Science etable products. He soon specialized in proud. Museum Pictorial Collection SME 110. paper artefacts. He was convinced that the Picture no.AST/C100276. Credit: Science Vinland Map was a fake,later confirmed by Willem Hackmann Museum/Science & Society Picture Library. Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society No. 76 (2003) 1 The Annual Invitation Lecture Scientific Instruments: Why? Gerard L’E Turner This Society was founded in 1983; twenty me, the essential target. From this comes a essential to find a skilled craftsman, and years ago next year. I was a founder mem- slowly growing awareness of where the desirable to have the instrument made as ber, and was honoured to become the first centres of precision instrument-making large as possible,to minimize errors in read- Chairman.This lecture will not, I hope, be were located, with important social and ing the scales. Searches in other museums, my swan song, because I intend to go on economic implications. and in the literature,finally revealed a group working as long as I am able.What I shall of twenty-six instruments that I could In my early years at the Museum of the try to give you is a brief account of how I ascribe to Giusti. Of these, three quadrants History of Science, Oxford, the optical study scientific instruments, and what and a nocturnal bear his signature,and were instruments were my special charge.Before results my method can produce. shop goods.The remainder are finely craft- turning to history, I had worked with the ed pieces that were commissioned. Some The first task of the instrument historian is electron microscope, and I was closely of these bear the initials or name of the to find the instruments. This may sound involved with the Royal Microscopical patron, in two cases Egnazio Danti. easy, but it is not. Many museums identify Society,whose historical collection is now instruments incorrectly, and cannot housed in the Museum, and has been cata- As well as the nucleus of Giusti’s produc- attribute them to the maker,or even to the logued by me.For more than a century after tion, the Museo in Florence presented me, country of origin.In this connection,a great the invention of the telescope and the in 1992, with an even greater prize. I was stride forward was made with the Directory microscope around 1608, the lenses were able to identify as being by Gerard Mercator of Scientific Instrument Makers, the bible kept the required distance apart by tubes (1512-1594) a superb Flemish astrolabe for the English trade, whose author is your made of wood or pasteboard covered with with five latitude plates,and a map plate,all Chairman, Gloria Clifton.
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