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Microscope Museum Collection of antique microscopes and other
scientific instruments |
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Microscope
254 (Charles
Baker; educational microscope; c. 1860)
The
business of Baker was founded in London in about 1765, Charles Baker, who was
born in 1820, giving his name to the company from about 1851. When Charles
Baker died in 1894 the firm continued under the same name but run by the Curties family until it became, in 1936, Charles Baker
& Co. and subsequently, sometime in the 1940s, C. Baker Ltd. The firm’s
address mostly given as 244 High Holborn, London (but sometimes 243 and 245,
sometimes in combination). The firm produced optical and surgical
instruments. In 1963, Vickers acquired the C Baker Ltd microscope factory and
a new company called Vickers Instruments was formed. Microscope 254 is signed
with ‘BAKER, 244 High Holborn, London’ and should be a version of a Baker’s
student microscope (Figure 1). The instrument should be dated to c. 1860.
Figure
1.
Baker’s student microscope as engraved in the 1854 edition of Jabez Hogg’s
book ‘The microscope: its history, construction and application’ |
