Innovation in the Design of Scientific Instruments in the Georgian Era: The Role of the Society of Arts

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Notes

1 Sir Henry Truman Wood, A History of the Royal Society of Arts. (London: John Murray, 1913), p. 558, fully illustrated

2 Derek Hudson and Kenneth W. Luckhurst, The Royal Society of Arts 1754–1954. (London: John Murray, 1954) p. 411, fully illustrated.

3 A. Rupert Hall, ‘The Royal Society of Arts: Two centuries of progress’. Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 122 (1974), 641–658. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41371415

4 The 6 ft diameter Greenwich Mural Circle better known as the Meridian Circle measured the altitude of a star as it crossed the Greenwich Meridian. The Circle was fixed on a wall aligned north-south with a special purpose telescope pivoted at the centre and mounted so that it could only point along the meridian. The circumference of the Circle carried an accurately engraved scale marked from 0 to 360 degrees which was read by six micrometers spaced at intervals around the Circle. This defined the Greenwich Meridian from 1816 until 1850 and the Mural Circle can still be seen at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

5 E Wilfred Taylor, J Simms Wilson and P D Scott Maxwell, At the sign of the orrery: the origins of the firm of Cooke, Troughton & Simms, Ltd. (York, England: Cooke, Troughton & Simms, Ltd, 1959) p. 78, fully illustrated.