The Beginnings of Commercial Manufacture of the Reflecting Telescope in London

Hall A. Rupert Simpson A. D. C. , “An account of the Royal Society's Newton telescope”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, l (1996), 1–11, p. 4; Denis J. B. (ed.), Recoeuil des mémoires et conférences sur les arts & les sciences, presentées a Monseigneur Le Dauphin pendant l'année M.DC.LXXII (consulted in the Amsterdam 1673 edn), 43–49, issue dated 1 March 1672; Gallois J. (ed.), Le journal des sçavans: Tome troisième … 1672 (Paris, 1671–72), 23–28, issue dated 29 February 1672.

For earlier work, see Turner A. J. , Of time and measurement: Studies in the history of horology and fine technology (Aldershot, 1993), chap. XXI: “The pre-history, origins and development of the reflecting telescope”; Ariotti P. E. , “Bonaventura Cavalieri, Marin Mersenne, and the reflecting telescope”, Isis, lxvi (1975), 1975–21.

Simpson A. D. C. , “James Gregory and the reflecting telescope”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxiii (1992), 77–92.

Ibid., 88. On the identity of Laurent Cassegrain (c. 1629–93), see Baranne André Launay Françoise , “Cassegrain, un célèbre inconnue de l'astronomie instrumentale”, Journal of optics, xxviii (1999), 158–72. There is a summary at http://www.iop.org./EJ/abstract/0150-536X/28/.4/004.

Simpson A. D. C. , “Richard Reeve — The English Campani — And the origins of the London telescope-making tradition”, Vistas in astronomy, xxviii (1985), 357–65.

Simpson A. D. C. , “Robert Hooke and practical optics: Technical support at a scientific frontier”, in Hunter Michael Schaffer Simon (eds), Robert Hooke: New studies (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989), 33–61, p. 39, note 20; Hooke Robert , “Observations of the Planet Mars”, Philosophical transactions, i (1665–66), 239, issue dated 2 July 1666. For Reeve see Simpson A. D. C. , “Richard Reeve”, in The Oxford dictionary of national biography [hereafter Oxford DNB] (60 vols, Oxford, 2004), xlvi, 344–5.

Simpson , “Robert Hooke” (ref. 6), 44–50.

Bechler Z. , “‘A less agreeable matter’: The disagreeable case of Newton and achromatic refraction”, The British journal of the history of science, viii (1975), 101–26.

Simpson , “Robert Hooke” (ref. 6), 52; discussed in idem, “The early development of the reflecting telescope in Britain”, Ph.D. dissertation, Edinburgh, 1981, 72–73, 257–65. The manuscript (Cambridge University Library ms Add 3969 f. 591) has been incorrectly associated with Newton's earliest reflecting telescope of 1668: Turnbull W. H. (ed.), The correspondence of Isaac Newton, i: 1661–1675 (Cambridge, 1959), 104 n. 17 (although he elsewhere dates it to 1671–72); Mills A. A. Turvey P. J. , “Newton's telescope: An examination of the reflecting telescope attributed to Sir Isaac Newton in the possession of the Royal Society of London”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxxiii (1979), 1979–55, p. 135; Whiteside D. T. , The mathematical papers of Isaac Newton, iii: 1670–1673 (Cambridge, 1969), 439 n. 23 (dating it to before the second telescope).

Newton I. , Opticks: Or, a Treatise of the Reflexion, Refraction, Inflexions and Colours of Light (3 Books in one, London, 1704), I, 79: Proposition VIII “To Shorten Telescopes”.

Whiteside , op. cit. (ref. 9), 526.

Turnbull W. H. (ed.), The correspondence of Isaac Newton, ii: 1676–87 (Cambridge, 1960), 303: Letter of Newton to Hooke, 9 December 1679. On Christopher Cock, see Simpson , opera cit. (refs 5 and 6).

Newton , op. cit. (ref. 10), I, 77–78. The dating of this work is given as “five or six Years ago”, and this can be deduced as about 1682 from Newton's comments in the “Advertisement” published at the front of his Opticks, which described how part of the book “was written at the desire of some Gentlemen of the ROYAL-SOCIETY in the 1675 [i.e. Book II, parts i—iii], and then sent to their Secretary, and read at their meetings [in early 1676], and the rest [i.e. Book I] was added about Twelve Years after [i.e. “about” 1687–88] to complete the Theory; except [for Books III and Book II, part iv] … which were since put together out of scattered Papers”.

Simpson , “Robert Hooke” (ref. 6), 53–54.

Ibid., 52.

Hadley J. , “An Account of a Catadioptrick Telescope, made by John Hadley, Esq: F.R.S. With the Description of a Machine contriv'd by him for the applying it to use”, Philosophical transactions, xxxii (1723), 303–12.

For Short, see Bryden D. J. , James Short and his telescopes [exhibition catalogue] (Edinburgh, 1968); Turner G. L'E. , “James Short, FRS, and his contribution to the construction of reflecting telescopes”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxiv (1969), 1969–108; Bryden D. J. , “James Short, MA, FRS, Optician solely for Reflecting Telescopes”, University of Edinburgh journal, xxiv (1970), 1970–61; Clarke T. N. Morrison-Low A. D. Simpson A. D. C. , Brass & glass: Scientific instrument making workshops in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1989), 1–10.

Scott J. F. (ed.), The correspondence of Isaac Newton, iv: 1694–1709 (Cambridge, 1967), 424: Letter of Flamsteed to Pound, 15 November 1704.

Cohen I. B. , “Preface” to I. Newton, Opticks … fourth edition, London, 1730 (New York, 1952), pp. xxii, xxxvi.

Harris J. , Lexicon technicum: Or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciences (London, 1704). In exceptional circumstances the text was altered: The article “Colour” was already being set in type when the Opticks appeared, but a summary was incorporated. The venture was funded by a consortium of booksellers, and they were obliged to restrict Harris's enthusiasm because of escalating costs — In most cases where Harris felt that revision or addition was necessary he had to wait until it proved possible to finance the supplementary volume in 1710: Scott (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 18), 424: Letter of Flamsteed to Pound, 15 November 1704.

Wallis R. V. Wallis P. J. , Biobibliography of British mathematics and its applications, Part II: 1701–1760 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1986), entry 701HAR04/08.

Morton Alan Q. Wess Jane A. , Public & private science: The King George III Collection (Oxford, 1995), 39–49.

On Pitcairne see Simpson A. D. C. , “Sir Robert Sibbald — The founder of the College”, in Passmore R. (ed.), Proceedings of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Tercentenary Congress 1981 (Edinburgh, 1982), 59–91.

Johnston W. T. , The best of our owne: Letters of Archibald Pitcairne, 1652–1713 (Edinburgh, 1979), 54.

Gregory D. , Catoptricae et dioptricae sphaericae elementa (Oxford, 1695).

Mayor J. E. B. (ed.), Cambridge under Queen Anne (Cambridge, 1911), 392.

Quarrell W. H. Mare M. (eds), London in 1710; from the travels of Zacharius Conrad von Uffenbach (London, 1934), 168 (28 October 1710). William Derham had travelled to London in June 1704 to see Newton's “new Contrivance of Reflecting glasses”, but this was a burning mirror and not a reflecting telescope: Atkinson A. D. , “William Derham F.R.S. (1657–1735)”, Annals of science, viii (1952), 1952–92, p. 381; Mills A. A. , “Single lens magnifiers, Part V: Burning glasses”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, no. 58 (1998), 28–32.

For example, “A Letter from the Rev. Mr. James Pound, Rector of Wanstead, F.R.S. to Dr. Jurin Secr. R.S. concerning Observations made with Mr. Hadley's Reflecting Telescope”, Philosophical transactions , xxxii (1723), 382. William Derham may have been influenced by such trials as were undertaken: In late 1711 he was testing a new 100-foot objective by John Marshall and told Sloane that “I have a pretty strong conceit I can improve Sir Isaac's Catoptrical Telescope: But the expense it would put me to, makes me find the want of a small additional preferment …”. Sloane worked to secure this but it was Samuel Molyneux who had Derham appointed chaplain to the Prince of Wales in 1716: Atkinson, op. cit. (ref. 27), 384, 386.

Zuidervaart Huib J. , “Reflecting ‘popular culture’: The introduction, diffusion, and construction of the reflecting telescope in the Netherlands”, Annals of science, lxi (2004), 407–52, pp. 412–13.

For Hadley's quadrant see, ‘N.R.D.’ [i.e. Stephen Peter Rigaud], “On the invention of Hadley's quadrant”, Nautical magazine , i (1832), 348–52; and idem, “History of Hadley's quadrant”, ibid., ii (1833), 1833–62; iii (1834), 201–10, 286–92, 339–45. For the Hadleys, including a brief account of their telescope work, see idem, “Biographical account of John Hadley, Esq., V.P.R.S., the inventor of the quadrant, and of his brothers George and Henry”, ibid., iv (1835), 1835–22, 137–46, 529–38, 650–7. S. P. Rigaud was identified as the author of these in ibid., iv (1835), 12; his name was not recorded however in the reprinted versions subsequently produced as pamphlets with new pagination. These pamphlets were the sources of the entries on Hadley for the Dictionary of national biography (1890) and the Dictionary of scientific biography (1972), whose authors merely cited them as anonymous. These articles were also used by Sir David Brewster, who was however aware of the author's identity: Brewster D. , Memoirs of the life, writings and discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (Edinburgh, 1855), i, 54 n. 1. A recent account is Gloria Clifton, “The adoption of the octant in the British Isles”, in Daalder R. Loomeijer F. Wildeman D. (eds), Koersvast: Vijf eeuwen navigatie op zee (Amsterdam, 2005), 85–94, 266–7; and see Clifton Gloria , “John Hadley”, in Oxford DNB (ref. 6), xxiv, 428–9.

Rigaud , “Biographical account” (ref. 30), 17, repeats the claim by J. T. Desaguliers that Hadley had patented the water power device used at London Bridge. He was however only ten years old when the patent was granted in 1693, so it seems most likely that the patentee was a different John Hadley.

The association must have been well established between Sloane and the Hadleys by 1715, the year in which Henry left to begin his medical studies in Leiden. He graduated in 1718, dedicating his thesis to Sloane: Ibid., 650.

Ibid., 137 and note.

Ibid., 21. This may merely refer to the statement at the Society's meeting that the telescope had been made “according to our President's directions in his opticks”: See below, ref. 41.

Westfall Richard , Never at rest: A biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1980), 832 n. 167. Jim Bennett has recently emphasized this episode as part of a concerted programme to demonstrate the practical efficacy of what was seen as a key part of Newton's legacy: “Catadioptrics and commerce in eighteenth-century London”, History of science, xliv (2006), 2006–78, p. 255.

Rigaud , “Biographical account” (ref. 30), 530, 651. Rigaud apparently based these statements on the known collaboration of the brothers ten years later, and on the description in the will of John Hadley's nephew, Hadley Cox, of a reflecting telescope of c. 1726 made “with the assistance of his two brothers, George and Henry”: ibid., 536. It is therefore also possible that George and Henry became involved with this work only after the first two instruments had been made.

Rigaud , “Invention” (ref. 30), 350; Rigaud , “History” (ref. 30), 343; Rigaud , “Biographical account” (ref. 30), 530, 651. For 1735 and 1744 octants with issue labels signed by George Hadley, see Clifton , op. cit. (ref. 30).

Smith Robert , A Compleat System of Opticks in Four Books, viz a Popular, a Mathematical, a Mechanical, and a Philosophical Treatise, to which are added Remarks upon the Whole (2 vols, Cambridge, 1738), ii, 302.

Hadley J. , “Observations on the Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, … Extracted from the Minutes of the Royal Society, Apr. 6. 1721”, Philosophical transactions, xxxii (1723), 385.

Newton , op. cit. (ref. 10), I, 77.

Royal Society, ms Journal Book, meeting of 12 January 1720/1.

Ibid., meeting of 19 January 1720/1.

“An Account of a Catadioptrick Telescope, made by John Hadley, Esq: F.R.S. with a Description of a Machine contriv'd by him for the applying it to use”, Philosophical transactions, xxxii (1723), 305–12.

Rigaud , “Biographical account” (ref. 30), 19. It is not clear whether this report was made in March 1720/1 or March 1721/2, although it appears to have been the latter: The original report has not been found.

Atkinson , op. cit. (ref. 27), 388.

Rigaud S. P. (ed.), Miscellaneous works and correspondence of the Rev. James Bradley, D.D., F.R.S. (Oxford, 1832), 354.

Pound , op. cit. (ref. 28), 382–4.

Rigaud , op. cit. (ref. 46), pp. lxxv, 197; Howse H. D. , Greenwich Observatory, iii: The buildings and instruments (London, 1975), 60–64.

Royal Society, ms Journal Book, meeting of 28 June 1728; Rigaud , op. cit. (ref. 46), 364. His observations of eclipse times of Jupiter's satellites were used by him in 1728 to deduce longitude differences between Lisbon, New York and London, and he commented on the consistent discrepancy between the times of observations made with reflectors and refractors — An effect later to be investigated by Maskelyne: Bradley James , “The Longitude of Lisbon, and of the Fort of New York from Wansted and London determined by the Eclipse of the First Satellite of Jupiter”, Philosophical transactions , xxxiv (1728), 85–90; Forbes E. G. , Greenwich Observatory, i: Origins and early history (1675–1835) (London, 1975), 139–40. In 1750, when writing to Delisle, Bradley made it clear that his Jupiter observations had been made with a reflector “made by the late Mr John Hadley, and presented by him to the Royal Society”: Rigaud, op. cit. (ref. 46), 462.

Rigaud , “Biographical account” (ref. 30), 657; for the negative results of his earlier enquiries, see ibid., 19. The mirror, which had been attributed to Hadley by the compiler of the Royal Society's 1827 list of scientific instruments, was described by the instrument maker William Simms who completed the 1832 published list as “ancient & imperfect”: For the background to these lists, see Simpson A. D. C. , “Newton's telescope and the cataloguing of the Royal Society's repository”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxxviii (1984), 187–214. Bradley's patron, the Earl of Macclesfield, set up an observatory at Sherburn Castle, close to Oxford, in the late 1730s, and Bradley was a frequent observer there. Macclesfield, who was President of the Royal Society from 1752 to his death in 1764, borrowed the Huygens telescope apparatus and this was returned in a number of crates by his widow. It is quite possible that he had been lent the Hadley reflector by Bradley, and that the mirror was returned at the same time.

Science Museum, London, inv. no. 1932–459. Besides the mirror and its handle, there are five of the six original eyepieces, but only one (a concave) has its lens. The convex eyepieces are marked with magnifications that correspond with the description in Hadley, op. cit. (ref. 43), 306: I × 190; II × 210; III × 230.

These accounts by Molyneux and Hauksbee are discussed below. Rigaud believed in 1832 that Bradley had used another 5-foot Newtonian by Hadley at Greenwich, and that this was the instrument then in the hands of a descendant, Richard Best of Greenwich: Rigaud, op. cit. (ref. 46), 537. It is presumed that this was the 6-foot Newtonian supplied by James Short in 1756, which was in use until 1785 and had a rather similar construction to the Hadley instrument: Howse, op. cit. (ref. 48), 113, 115, fig. 105. Rigaud did not believe Short had delivered this instrument: Rigaud, op. cit. (ref. 46), p. lxxix.

Letter of Hadley to Sloane, 8 September 1724, reproduced only in the off-printed version of Rigaud, “Biographical account” (ref. 30).

“An Account of the Gregorian Reflecting Telescope, as perfected by John Hadley, Esq; Vice-President of the Royal Society, in the Year 1726”, in Desaguliers J. T. , “Appendix … containing, an Account of the Reflecting Telescopes; … with Original Letters which passed between Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. James Gregory …”, 250–6, appended to D. Gregory, Elements of catoptrics and dioptrics, translated … by Browne William (2nd edn, London, 1735).

Ibid.

Desaguliers , op. cit. (ref. 54), 253–4. These were revised in 1734, ibid., 285–8, and Hadley mentioned in his letter to Desaguliers that he had given a similar table of sizes for Cassegrain telescopes to Samuel Molyneux.

Rigaud , “Biographical account” (ref. 30), 536.

Science Museum, London, inv. no. 1939–601. See Thoday A. G. , Astronomy. 2: Astronomical telescopes [at the Science Museum] (London, 1971), item 6. Correspondence about the inscription, and the owner's copy of Rigaud's off-print, are included in the specimen's Technical File.

“The method of casting, grinding and polishing metals for reflecting telescopes, begun by the Honourable Samuel Molyneux Esquire, and continued by John Hadley Esquire, Vice-President of the Royal Society”, in Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, 301–12.

Ibid., 302.

Rigaud , op. cit. (ref. 46), 401–3.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, 311. Rolf Willach, who has analysed the primary of Hadley's telescope, finds its composition to be far from satisfactory, with a high level of zinc, and less than half the amount of tin necessary for a suitably hard surface, and he has noted that the metal disc has distorted badly: Willach Rolf , “The development of the reflecting telescope in the 18th century from John Hadley to James Short”, Atti della Fondacion Giorgio Ronchi, lxii (2007), 267–8, 276.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, 302. For Molyneux, see Clerke A. M. , revised by A. M. McConnell, “Samuel Molyneux”, in Oxford DNB (ref. 6), xxxviii, 559.

Molyneux William , Dioptrica nova:a treatise of dioptricks, wherein the various effects and appearances of spherick glasses, both convex and concave, single and combined in telescopes and microscopes, … are explained (London, 1692).

Clerke A. M. , “James Bradley”, in Stephen L. (ed.), Dictionary of national biography , vi (London, 1886), 167; and see Williams Mari W. , “James Bradley”, in Oxford DNB (ref. 6), vii, 213–19.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, 302. The interruption to Bradley's work was probably the start of his duties as Savilian professor at Oxford, where his inaugural lecture was given in April 1721: Clerke , “James Bradley”, op. cit. (ref. 65), 167.

de Carvalho Romulo , A astronomia em Portugal no seculo XVIII (Lisbon, 1985), 44. I am grateful to Rear-Admiral Manuel Vilarinho, then Director, Museu de Marinha, Lisbon, for this reference. Other instruments purchased by John V are noted by M. Daumas, Scientific instruments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and their makers (London, 1972), 127. Cavalho believed the telescope had been dispatched to Brazil with other astronomical instruments to settle the position of the border with the Spanish colonies to the south. The instrument's actual provenance, in a series of gifts, is documented by Eurica Baiada and Alessandro Braccesi, “Lo sviluppo della strumentazione astronomica dell'Osservatorio Marsiliano e della Specola dell'Istituto delle Scienze di Bologna dal 1702 al 1815”, in Tarozzi Gino (ed.), Gli strumenti nella storia e nella filosofia della scienze (Bologna, 1981), 77–126; and see the catalogue of the Museo della Specola, Bologna, www.bo.astro.it, telescope 35. Anthony Turner has recently pointed out that “the first reflecting telescope seen in France was, according to Henry Sully, presented to Louis XV in 1726”; noting also that this stimulated Jacques Lemaire to produce a front-view variant form of the instrument, demonstrated to the Académie des Sciences in September 1726: Turner A. J. , “Claude Paris and the early history of the reflecting telescope in France”, Journal of the Antique Telescope Society, no. 30 (2009), 5–8. The implication is that the original was a London-made Newtonian constructed in or before early 1726. This may exclude the possible makers suggested by Turner; however the telescope may plausibly have been another diplomatic gift, constructed by Molyneux and similarly presented in the name of the Prince of Wales.

“Sir Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope made and described by the Honourable Samuel Molyneux, and presented by him to his Majesty John V, King of Portugal”, Smith, op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, 363 and Plate 53. The description is apparently taken from instructions sent with the telescope: Thus, the speculum when not in use is to be kept “in the round cell in the red box”.

On 18 August 1725: “the 1st Sat. of Jupiter immerged by an 8f. reflect. At Kew”: Rigaud, op. cit. (ref. 46), 356. This, together with a reference to Hauksbee's activity, dates this part of Molyneux's account to about mid-1725.

Wilcox John , Catalogue of the library of the Honble Samuel Molyneux deceased … (London, 1730), 66: 12th day, lot 87, “A Reflecting Tellescope of Sir Isaac Newton's, 8 Foot long made by Mr. Molyneux”, purchased for £20 5/– (auctioneer's annotated copy in the Houghton Library, Harvard, B 1827 578*). I am grateful to D. J. Bryden for drawing this catalogue to my attention and to Harvard College Library for permission to quote from it. For Ilay, see Emerson Roger L. , “The scientific interests of Archibald Campbell 1st Earl of Ilay and 3rd Duke of Argyll (1682–1761)”, Annals of science, lix (2002), 2002–56. A further 2-foot reflector by Molyneux, together with two of his astronomical clocks (one by Graham) were also purchased by Ilay at the Molyneux sale.

Desaguliers , op. cit. (ref. 54), 255.

Simpson , op. cit. (ref. 5), 364–5. Hauksbee's training is problematic. Francis Hauksbee Sr was the son of an Essex draper, and was apprenticed in 1678 to his brother John in the London Drapers' Company, becoming free in 1712: Clifton Gloria , Directory of British scientific instrument makers 1550–1851 (London, 1995), 128. He had however, been turned over for his training in 1680 to another Draper, Francis Green, and possibly also to John Palmer, who like John Rowley was a member of the Broderers' Company, but is recorded only to 1683: “Summary of documents relating to the Hauksbee family” compiled by D. Dave, Guildhall Library, ref. C78/T.1963, and confirmed in the Corporation of London freedom records, 1712. Francis Jr, John's son, obtained his freedom of the Drapers' Company by patrimony in 1714, then aged 26. It is possible that he was the Francis Hauksbee apprenticed to Marshall in the Turners' Company in October 1703, who seems not to have taken his freedom in that company: Turners' Company register of apprentice bindings and freedom admissions, Guildhall Library ms 3302/2.

Royal Society, ms Council minutes, meeting of 27 June 1732.

Hauksbee F. , Proposals for making a large reflecting telescope (London, [1725]), 1. Eva Taylor states that the instrument was designed in the period 1719–20, and constructed with Hadley: Taylor E. G. R. , The mathematical practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England 1485–1714 (Cambridge, 1954), 299, 302. Her source is not known; but, if correct, it may imply that Hauksbee had assisted Hadley in the construction of his two telescopes.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, “Remarks”, 79. The telescope aperture is stated to be 4½ inches.

Ibid., 302.

Ibid., 303.

Ibid., 281. Molyneux's appointment was in July 1727.

Desaguliers, op. cit. (ref. 54), 212.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, “Remarks”, 80.

Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, inv. no. 20020 (orrery no. 12). A. J. Turner, Early scientific instruments: Europe 1400–1800 (London, 1987), 240, fig. 261, where he notes its description in Wright's 1731 catalogue as “A small Reflecting Tellescope on a Stand New Fashion”. Gunther R. T. , Early science in Oxford, ii: Astronomy (Oxford, 1923), 314, 315, mistakenly dated it to c. 1710; he apparently based this on a belief that an illustration of this type of mounting appeared in the 1710 edition of Harris's Lexicon technicum. Anthony Turner has noted that Claude Paris was able to examine a 16-inch Gregorian by Scarlett in 1732, and embarked on a series of trials of possible speculum alloys before producing successful telescopes from 1733: Turner , op. cit. (ref. 67), 6. However, Turner was unable to confirm the claim by Maurice Daumas that one of the Scarletts visited Paris in 1738 and handed over the secret of their speculum composition: ibid., 6, citing Daumas, op. cit. (ref. 67), 170.

Science Museum, London, inv. no. 1968–75. Baxandall D. , “Early telescopes in the Science Museum, from an historical standpoint”, Transactions of the Optical Society , xxiv (1922–23), 304–20, p. 315. Another example is in the collection of Peter Louwman in The Netherlands: Personal communication, June 2009.

Bryden , op. cit. (ref. 17, 1968), 29. National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, inv. no. T.1968.75.

Guildhall Library: Spectacle Makers' Company court minutes, ms 5213/1, 25 June 1691.

Westminster Archives: St Anne's Soho, King's Square ward, poor rates ms A21–27, “Mr Cock/Cox”; A37, 41, “Widd Cock”; A43, “Wm [corrected to Edward] Scarlett”.

Spectacle Makers' Company, court minutes, ms 5213/3, 28 June 1705. Freedom was not taken to enable Scarlett to bind an apprentice.

Bradbury S. , “The development of the reflecting microscope”, Microscopy: Journal of the Quekett Microscopical Club, xxxi (1968), 1–19, pp. 3–4.

For this paragraph, see Library Guildhall , London, White Friars Farringdon land-tax assessments ms 11,316.50–176; Joiners' Company, freedom admissions ms 8051/2; apprentice bindings ms 8052/2, 5; quarterage accounts ms 8055/1: Clifton, op. cit. (ref. 72), 131. Other than telescopes, no signed instruments by Hearne are known except for a cased set of drawing instruments in the National Museums of Scotland, inv. no. T.1985.76.

Rigaud , op. cit. (ref. 46), 3–4.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, 304. Rolf Willach has examined spectrographically the complex crystalline structure of the primaries of Hadley's 1726 Gregorian and instruments by Hearne and Scarlett, and has found almost identical compositions, very close to the optimum: Willach, op. cit. (ref. 62), 267.

Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Cambridge, inv. no. Wh:741; Gunther R. T. , Early science in Cambridge (Oxford, 1937), 204, plate opposite p. 205. Edleston described it as being shown to visitors as Newton's own telescope: Edleston J. (ed.), Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Coates (London, 1850), p. xlvi. Described in Bennett J. A. , The Whipple Museum of the History of Science Catalogue 3: Astronomy & Navigation (Cambridge, 1983), item 88. Smith was Master of Trinity College from 1742 until his death in 1768.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, 304.

The collection at the ‘Astronomical Tower’ of the Pedagogical Academy at Eger, based on those of the 1770s Archiepiscopal Observatory, include a 5-foot reflector signed “Geo Hearne”: Illustrated in Bartha Lajos , “Old time-measuring, astronomical and surveying instruments in the museums of Hungary”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society , no. 19 (1989), 8–12, p. 8, fig. 1; idem, “Csillagasztorony es Csillagaszatim Muzeum Egerben”, Technikatorteneti, iv (1967), [not paginated], fig. 7. Derek Howse listed two Hearnes of this size at Egar, and noted one subsequently moved to Budapest: Howse D. , “The Greenwich list of observatories”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xvii (1986), part 4, p. 33.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, 366–7, Plate 53, fig. 618. The convenience of the design is seen, for example, in the adaptation used by the instrument maker G. F. Brander of Augsburg, in the 1770s: Riekher Rolf , Fernrohre und ihre Meister (2nd edn, Berlin, 1990), 100.

Astronomisch-Physikalisches Kabinett, Kassel, inv. no. F 345. This instrument was drawn to my attention in May 2009 by Dr Karsten Gaulke, curator of these collections at the Orangerie Museum, Kassel, and he has also kindly supplied photographs. The description in von Uffenbach's published travel diaries is in Arnim Max (ed.), Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach: Tagebuch einer Spazierfarth durch die Hessischen in die Braunschweig-Lüneburgischen Lande (1728) (Göttingen 1928), 4–5. In August 1728, von Uffenbach saw “the fine English Newtonian telescope which had been acquired one year ago”, and with J. P. Muth, ‘Opticus Professor’, and the housekeeper Rath Schminke, he viewed a distant flag and groups of people outside the building. Muth explained the difficulty of making a suitable alloy and polishing the mirror, and announced that he had already made a smaller telescope. Muth is recorded as the maker of mathematical and astronomical instruments at Kassel in the Webster Signature Database of the Adler Planetarium, Chicago: http://historydb.adlerplanetarium.org/signatures/m.pl. I am grateful to Dr Maja Waldhausen for kindly translating the entry in the diary. For von Uffenbach, see Michael Tilmonth's biography in Sadie Stanley (ed.), The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd edn (29 vols, Oxford, 2001), xxvi, 33–34. Hearne may not have been in a position to sign this instrument if, as suggested, he was still a journeyman, but it should be noted that at this early date Scarlett was not signing his instruments either.

Zuidervaart Huib , Telescopes from Leiden Observatory and other collections (Leiden, 2007), 106–7: Boerhaave Museum inv. no. 9620; de Sitter W. , Short history of the Observatory of the University at Leiden 1833–1933 (Haarlem, [1933]), 16; Engberts E. , Descriptive catalogue of the telescopes in the Rijksmuseum voor de Geschiedenis der Natuurwetenschappen (Leiden, 1970), 13–14, fig. 3: Inv. no. A10. The original mirrors were replaced in 1750 by the Dutch instrument maker Jan van der Bildt: ibid., 13–14.

Schramm Helmut , Astronomische Instrumente Katalog: Staatlicher Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon Dresden Zwinger (Dresden, 1987), 22, 46, inv. no. C I F 16, Ab; Reikher, op. cit. (ref. 94), 95.

Personal communication, March 2009.

Zuidervaart , op. cit. (ref. 96), 104: Boerhaave Museum, Leiden, inv. no. 9699.

Zuidervaart , op. cit (ref. 29), 414.

van Musschenbroek Petrus , Beginsels der Natuurkunde (Leiden, 1739), 630, and Plate 21, fig. 2. I am indebted to Hans Hooijmaijers and Harry Auwers of the Boerhaave Museum, for locating and translating this reference.

Ibid., Plate 22, fig. 2; Zuidervaart, op. cit. (ref. 29). Following Engberts, op. cit. (ref. 96), fig. 7, Zuidervaart identifies this with the unsigned Boerhaave Museum telescope, inv. no. 8165, although there is a gap in the provenance of this telescope: Zuidervaart, op. cit. (ref. 96), 105.

Desaguliers , op. cit. (ref. 54), 212.

For a nineteenth-century example of the unspoken relationship between a retailer and sub-contractor, see Simpson Allen , “A sub-contractor of W. & S. Jones identified”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society , no. 39 (1993), 23–27. Peter de Clercq has suggested that van Musschenbroek's brother, the instrument maker Jan van Musschenbroek, arranged for the import of the telescope from London to Utrecht: Peter de Clercq, At the Sign of the Oriental Lamp: The Musschenbroek workshop in Leiden 1660–1750 (Rotterdam, 1997), 148–9. Since Petrus van Musschenbroek credits the influence of Smith's Compleat system of opticks in the study of telescope making practice, he would have been aware of George Hearne and would have recorded his name if there had been separate dealings with him over a telescope order: Peter van Musschenbroek, The elements of natural philosophy, chiefly intended for the use of students in universities (2 vols, London, 1744), ii, 159.

Colin Maclaurin to George Graham, 15 February 1732, recording the arrival of the telescope, printed in Mills Stella (ed.), The collected letters of Colin MacLaurin (Nantwich, Cheshire, 1982), 243–4; and see Ponting Betty : “Mathematics at Aberdeen University: Developments, characters and events 1495–1717” and “1717–1860” in Aberdeen University review, xlviii (1979–80), 26–35 and 162–76.

Listed by Reid John , “The Castlehill Observatory, Aberdeen”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xiii (1982), 84–96, p. 89, who notes that Prof. Patrick Copland had the primary mirror reworked and the secondary replaced in 1819; listed by the late eighteenth-century Swedish traveller Thorkelin G. J. : “The Northern Traveller” (1790), letters 3 and 4 (mss in Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen), published in Johnston W. T. (ed.), Thorkelin and Scotland: Several works by Grimur Jonsson Thorkelin (1752–1829) illustrative of his connection with Scotland and written in English (Edinburgh, 1982), 43–50; listed also in Wilson Robert , An historical account and delineation of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, 1822).

Benassi S. Dragoni G. , Didattica e scienza: I laboratori scolastici in Emilia e in Romagna (Bologna, 1983), 30–33.

Bros Maggs ., English literature & painting from the 15th to the 18th century (2 parts, London, 1928), Part 1, 797, item 2347, offered at £2 2s. I am grateful to the University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor, for permission to quote from this catalogue. No copy of Hearne's directions has been located. Although a number of Hearne telescopes were sold in Holland, there is no copy recorded in a Dutch library: Personal communication from Harry Auwers, Boerhaave Museum Librarian, May 2009.

Moisseeva Tatiana M. , “Scientifica of the Petersburg Kunstkamera as the instruments for the introduction of new European knowledge in Russia”, in Strano Giorgio (eds), European collections of scientific instruments, 1550–1750 (Leiden and Boston, 2009), 160–8.

Rigaud , op. cit. (ref. 46), 412–15: Letter of John Bevis to Bradley, 5 August 1738.

Daumas , op. cit. (ref. 67), 229, citing Delisle ms papers in Paris Observatory Archives, vol. viii, item 10.

Willach , op. cit. (ref. 62), 255–88; and personal communication from Willach, March 2009. The stand of the instrument screws into the top of a pyramid-shaped fitted case.

Howse , op. cit. (ref. 93), 17, 60. Anthony Turner has noted that the mirror of this was repolished by Louis Abel de Bonafous, abbé de Fontenai, in about 1750: Turner, op. cit. (ref. 67), 6.

Zuidervaart , op. cit. (ref. 29), 414–15.

Zuidetvaart , op. cit. (ref. 96), 104.

Willach , op. cit. (ref. 62), 268.

The telescope remained in the Kam family in Leiden until 2004, and its provenance is described in a published account of the family history: Koeffler Carl , Het Geslacht Kam (The Hague, 1907); also personal communication from Peter Louwman, May 2009.

Zuidervaart , op. cit. (ref. 96), 105.

Taylor E. G. R. , The mathematical practitioners of Hanoverian England 1714–1840 (Cambridge, 1966), 181.

Brown J. , Mathematical instrument-makers in the Grocers' Company 1688–1800 (London, 1979), 36–37.

Patent 550 of 22 November 1734. Rigaud , “History” (ref. 30), 209, citing William Wales; Clifton, op. cit. (ref. 30), 90.

Brown , op. cit. (ref. 120), 75.

Mudge J. , “Directions for making the best Composition for the Metals of reflecting Telescopes; together with a Description of the Process for grinding, polishing, and giving the great Speculum the true parabolic Curve”, Philosophical transactions, lxvii (1777), 296–349, p. 298.

Astronomisch-Physikalisches Kabinett, Kassel, inv. no. F 350; see von Mackensen Ludolf , Die Naturwissenschaftling-technische Sammlung in Kassel (Kassel, 1991), Plate 1. I am grateful to Rolf Willach for drawing the telescope to my attention, and to Dr Karsten Gaulke, curator of these collections at the Orangerie Museum, Kassel, for providing details of this instrument. The telescope is in the 1765 inventory of the Kasseler Kunsthaus, but its provenance is unknown: Personal communication from Karsten Gaulke, May 2009.

An account of the comparison was prepared by John Bevis and read at the Royal Society on 16 December 1736: Royal Society, ms LBC.23.88–95. Much of the text of this report has been reproduced recently by McConnell Anita , “Which telescope? A report by John Bevis FRS in 1736”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society , no. 99 (2008), 9–10. Some details of the instruments examined were published in 1929, from a copy of Bevis's report in the British Library (ms Add. 4433), which however omits the second test and records those present only for the final test: Court T. H. von Rohr M. , “A history of the development of the telescope from about 1675 to 1830 based on documents in the Court Collection”, Transactions of the Optical Society, xxx (1929), 1929–60, p. 220.

National Maritime Museum inventory (Greenwich, 1970), pp. 31/3, 31/4. It can be deduced that Cuff did make specula himself since he signed a mirror of c. 1745, at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Cambridge, inv. no. Wh:422: See Bennett , op. cit. (ref. 91), item 91; for illustration see also item 90, another boxed reflecting telescope with Cuff trade card, inv. no. Wh:1132. Jim Bennett, in his recent exhibition “The English telescope from Newton to Herschel” at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, has observed that small Gregorians of c. 1745 signed by John Cuff and by Mann & Ayscough (MHSO, inv. nos. 25170 and 30063) are likely to have been manufactured in the same workshop. Rolf Willach has analysed the composition of 22 primary mirrors, and has noted identical mirror compositions for telescopes signed by Cuff and the optician Ralph Sterrop: Willach, op. cit. (ref. 62), 267.

Bryden , “Optician” (ref. 17), 253.

MacLaurin Colin , An account of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophical discoveries (London, 1748), p. iii.

Bryden , “Optician” (ref. 17), 254.

Erskine D. S. , Earl of Buchan, “Life of James Short”, Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, i (1792), 251–6.

This early work is described in Maclaurin's letter of 28 December 1734, extracted in Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), “Remarks”, 80–81; and see Mills , op. cit. (ref. 105), 252–3.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), “Remarks”, ii, 80–81.

Ibid.; Emerson, op. cit. (ref. 70), 36.

Erskine , op. cit. (ref. 130), 253.

Turner , op. cit. (ref. 17), 97.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, “Remarks”, 81.

Ibid.

Royal Society, ms Journal Book, meeting of 26 June 1735.

Bryden , “Optician” (ref. 17), 255.

For Morton, see Guerrini Anita , “James Douglas, fourteenth Earl of Morton”, in Oxford DNB (ref. 6), xvi, 681–2.

Erskine , op. cit. (ref. 130), 254. The Queen had earlier been impressed by a “history of the progress which philosophy had made before Sir Isaac's time” that Maclaurin had written shortly after Newton's death: Maclaurin, op. cit. (ref. 128), p. vi.

Bryden , “Optician” (ref. 17), 255. John Bevis described this instrument by Short as “the first Reflector he ever made”: See below, ref. 143.

The tests were conducted on 15 June, 8 July and 25 September 1736 and Graham and Bevis were present at each. Amongst other who attended were the instrument makers Thomas Heath and Edward Scarlett, and two of Short's sponsors for his election to the Society, Martin Folkes and Richard Graham. For Bevis's account of the trials, see ref. 125, above. The 5½-inch telescope, described as his “first”, had a metal mirror, and was therefore perhaps his first speculum metal telescope.

Clarke , op. cit. (ref. 17), 5; Mills, op. cit. (ref. 105), 263: Letter of Maclaurin to Folkes, 28 July 1736.

Smith , op. cit. (ref. 38), ii, “Remarks”, 104.

Mudge , op. cit. (ref. 123).

Turner , op. cit. (ref. 17), 98.

Mudge , op. cit. (ref. 123), 327.

Ibid., 333.

Ibid., 335.

Willach , op. cit. (ref. 62), 282–6.

Turner , op. cit. (ref. 17), Plate 10.

Mudge , op. cit. (ref. 123), 340. Willach has noted that there was a strong tendency for primaries to deform aspherically during the polishing process: Willach, op. cit. (ref. 62), 274. The author, in laboratory tests on two Short reflectors in 1969, found a detectable matching of the optical components in one of the telescopes examined, with the greatest clarity in the orientation specified by Short.

Turner G. L'E. , “James Short and the reflecting telescope”, Actes, XIIe Congrès International d'Histoire des Sciences, Paris 1968, x/A: Histoire des instruments scientifiques (Paris, 1971), 101–6; idem, “The London trade in scientific instrument-making in the 18th century”, Vistas in astronomy, xx (1976), 1976–82, p. 178. A recent survey of the instruments produced by Short is Willach Rolf , “List of extant reflecting telescopes made by James Short”, Journal of the Antique Telescope Society, no. 29 (2007), 11–22.

Devis's work was first considered seriously by Sitwell Sacheverell , Conversation pieces: A survey of English domestic portraits and their painters (London, 1936), and a pioneering subsequent study was Sidney Herbert Paviere's The Devis family of painters (Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, 1950). More recent exhibition catalogues (see refs 156 and 157) have enlarged the corpus of work attributable to Devis and provided a clearer view of the artist's patrons and associates.

Sarton S. V. , Polite society by Arthur Devis 1712–1787: Portraits of the English country gentleman and his family [exhibition catalogue, Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston, and National Portrait Gallery, London] (Preston, 1983), 30.

D'Oench Ellen G. , The conversation piece: Arthur Devis and his contemporaries [exhibition catalogue, Yale Center for British Art] (New Haven, Conn., 1980), 46.

Ibid., 42–43.

Strong Roy , The artist and the garden (New Haven, CN, and London, 2000), 63–73.

Posnett; David The Montagu Family at Sandleford Priory by Edward Haytley, 1744 (together with a short monograph and preliminary catalogue of Haytley's works) in an exhibition of English eighteenth century paintings (London, 1978), entry no. 7.

In the case of Short's smaller telescopes, the threaded end of the pillar was often still extended into a wood screw.

Devapriam Emma , “Two conversion pieces by Edward Haytley”, Apollo, August 1981, 85–87.

Strong , op. cit. (ref. 159), 80.

Ibid., 75–78.

Harris John , The artist and the country house: A history of country house and garden view painting in Britain 1540–1870 (London, 1979), 219.

Posnett , op. cit. (ref. 160), discussion of fig. 9. Haytley also painted a series of six portraits of the children of Edward, eleventh Earl of Derby, in 1746. Partly because of this propensity to undertake multiple commissions, but also for stylistic reasons, David Posnett suggests that this lost canvas may be another study of the Montagus. John Harris, on the other hand, proposes an association with the Brockmans, or with Matthew and Elizabeth Robinson, parents of Elizabeth Montagu and neighbours of the Brockmans, at Mount Morris, also near Hythe and also with a view of the sea: Harris , op. cit. (ref. 165), 220–1.