Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

Microscope 555 (J. W. Bailey; portable microscope; 1880s)

Microscope 555 is not signed but it is identical to Bailey’s portable microscope described in the 1883 volume of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society (Figure 1). Here, this microscope deserved the following comments by the journal: “The possible variations in the form of portable microscopes might be supposed to be pretty well exhausted, but Mr. J. W. Bailey has been able to adapt to the instrument … some ingenious points of novelty which make it very portable and at the same time steady … the stage is turned upwards on a cradle joint against the limb, the two legs, which move with it, then being also parallel with the limb. On closing together the legs (which turn on pivots fixed underneath the stage) and sliding the body-tube down, the instrument is reduced to 11.5 in. by 3 in. by 2.5 in. A milled head behind the stage secures it if desired. The instrument can be used in a vertical position by bringing forward the legs on their hinge joints, so that they project in front of the stage and mirror”. The original mirror of the instrument is missing. The same instrument is featured in Bracegirdle (2005) A catalogue of the microscopy collections at the science museum, London, Little Imp Publications. J. W. Bailey corresponds to John William Bailey, a manufacturing optician who traded from 162 Fenchurch Street, London.

Figure 1. Bailey’s portable microscope as featured in the 1883 volume of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society (pp. 697).