Francis Watkins and the Dollond Telescope Patent Controversy
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A01=Brian Gee
A01=edited by Anita McConnell
achromatic
Achromatic Lens
achromatic lens history
Achromatic Object Glasses
Achromatic Telescope
Author's Italics
Author_Brian Gee
Author_edited by Anita McConnell
Author’s Italics
Category=KCZ
Category=KJM
Category=N
Category=NHD
Category=NHTB
Category=PDX
Charing Cross
chester
Chester Moor Hall
Chromatic Aberration
Crown Glass
Dollond Patent
eighteenth-century science
Elliott Brothers
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
hall
Huguenot craftsmen London
instrument
Int Glass
James Ayscough
john
John Dollond
Journal De Physique
legal disputes in optical technology
Letters Patent
London Metropolitan Archives
Lord Manseld
moor
National Biography
Object Glasses
optical
optical instrument makers
patent law in optics
peter
Peter Dollond
refracting
Refracting Telescope
scientific instrument trade
Spherical Aberration
telescopes
TNA
Young Man
Product details
- ISBN 9781138279544
- Weight: 810g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 27 Feb 2017
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Francis Watkins was an eminent figure in his field of mathematical and optical instrument making in mid-eighteenth century London. Working from original documents, Brian Gee has uncovered the life and times of an optical instrument maker, who - at first glance - was not among the most prominent in his field. In fact, because Francis Watkins came from a landed background, the diversification of his assets enabled him to weather particular business storms - discussed in this book - where colleagues without such an economic cushion, were pushed into bankruptcy or forced to emigrate. He played an important role in one of the most significant legal cases to touch this profession, namely the patenting of the achromatic lens in telescopes. The book explains Watkins's origins, and how and why he was drawn into partnership with the famous Dollond firm, who at that point were Huguenot incomers. The patent for the achromatic telescope has never been satisfactorily explained in the literature, and the author has gone back to the original legal documents, never before consulted. He teases out the problems, lays out the evidence, and comes to some interesting new conclusions, showing the Dollonds as hard-headed and ruthless businessmen, ultimately extremely successful. The latter part of the book accounts for the successors of Francis Watkins, and their decline after over a century of successful business in central London.
Brian Gee was a member of the Scientific Instrument Society from its foundation in 1983. He published numerous key works on scientific instruments and had almost completed this monograph on the Dollond patent controversy before he died in 2009. Anita McConnell is an independent historian of science, living near Cambridge. A.D. Morrison-Low won the 2008 Paul Bunge Prize for her bookMaking Scientific Instruments in the Industrial Revolution (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). She is Principal Curator, Science, at National Museums Scotland. The completion of the book was made possible by the generous funding of the Scientific Instrument Society.
