Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

 

    

Microscope 18 (R & J Beck; new star microscope; c. 1890)

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R & J Beck occupy an especially important place in the history of the British microscope manufacturing with its beginning established in London, by Richard Beck (1827 - 1866) in association with James Smith (1800 – 1873), and later to be joined by his brother Joseph Beck. Richard and Joseph Beck were nephews of Joseph Jackson Lister, who was a respected British optician and physicist who experimented with achromatic lenses and perfected an optical microscope. In commissioning the manufacture of his improved microscope, Lister worked with James Smith, an employee of the instrument-making firm of William Tulley, to create the stand. James Smith went on to establish his own optical instruments workshop in 1837. Through this relationship, Lister arranged for his nephew, Richard Beck to be an apprentice under Smith in 1843. In 1847, James Smith entered into partnership with Richard Beck, and the company was re-named Smith & Beck. In 1854, the company was renamed to Smith, Beck and Beck, as Richard Beck's brother Joseph Beck joined the company in 1851. James Smith retired in 1865 and the company became R & J Beck and this name lasted for long time. In 1866, Richard Beck died at an early age of 39, and Joseph Beck carried on the business. In 1895 the company became a limited partnership (R & J Beck Ltd). By 1968, the company was a subsidiary of the Ealing Corporation of USA. In 2019, Beck Optronic Solutions Ltd is a descendent of the former R & J Beck Ltd. Microscope 18 is from c. 1890 and is known as the Beck’s New Star model (Figure 1). The main body parts are black on brass and lacquered brass. This microscope has rack and pinion and fine focussing by micrometre screws controlled by a knurled knob. The instrument contains a removable iris diaphragm, which is screwed onto the underside of the stage. The plane-concave mirror is mounted on an articulated arm from the limb, which allows it to be swung over the stage for oblique illumination. The original box of microscope 18 contained a label with the inscription ‘G. T. W. NEWSHOLME, pharmaceutical chemist, 74 Market Place, SHEFFIELD’. This suggests that this microscope belonged to (or at least was sold by) George Thomas Wilkinson Newsholme, a distinguished pharmacist who, in 1901, served as president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (the precursor of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society). Microscope 18 contains the serial number 17000 and this model replaced that of 1885, with a cast iron base and nickel-plated brass body.

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Figure 1. Beck’s New Star model microscope (adapted from the ‘Illustrated catalogue of microscopes, object glasses and apparatus manufactured by R. & J. Beck Limited’, 1894).

 

References

R & J Beck (1894) Illustrated catalogue of microscopes

James Smith, 1800 – 1873 (http://microscopist.net/SmithJ.html), last accessed on 12.08.2020

R. and J. Beck (https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/R._and_J._Beck), last accessed on 12.08.2020

Antique Optics - R & J Beck "Star " microscope (https://antiqueoptics.eu/home/landen/verenigd-koninkrijk/r-j-beck/), last accessed on 01.01.2021

R & J Beck "Star" 20895 (https://www.bononiaemicroscope.com/en/the-microscopes/england/87-r-j-beck-star-20895.html), last accessed on 02.01.2021

 

 

LAST EDITED: 15.08.2020