Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

 

Library telescope from J. M. Bryson (c. 1880)

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Library telescope engraved with ‘J. M. Bryson, Edinburgh’. This instrument should be dated to c. 1880. The telescope came with its original wooden box. James Mackay Bryson (1824 – 1894) came from a family of famous clockmakers (his father was Robert Bryson, one of the co-founders of the Edinburgh School of Arts, later named as Heriot-Watt University), and he set up as optician in 1850. Bryson traded from 65 Princes Street (1850 – 1853), 24 Princes Street (1853 – 1855), 60 Princes Street (1855 – 1866) and 60a Princes Street (1867 – 1893), all in Edinburgh, Scotland. Bryson retailed instruments from several makers, as well as instruments made by himself (he learnt how to make lenses for astronomical instruments during his apprenticeship with Georg Merz, in Munich, sometime before 1850).

 

LAST EDITED: 12.03.2022