Object data
wood, brass, iron, lead, glass, precious stone and paper
height 5.5 cm × width 29.3 cm × depth 20 cm
W. & T. Gilbert
Azimuth Compass with Tripod
London, c. 1810 - c. 1858
Inscriptions
- inscription, on the compass box: PATENT AZIMUTH & SURVEYING COMPASS, / MADE AND SOLD / By W. and T. GILBERT, / MATHEMATICAL INSTRUMENT-MAKERS AND OPTICIANS, / To the Honourable the Dutch East Indies Company, / nr. 148, LEADENHALL-STREET, LONDON.
- inscription, on the compass cards: W. & T. GILBERT, / 148, Leadenhall Street LONDON.
- inscription, on the compass card box: W. & T. GILBERT, / Mathematical Instrument / MAKERS AND OPTICIANS, / TO THE Hon.ble the Dutch East Indies Comp.y / 148, LEADENHALL STREET / LONDON.
- label, on the compass box: 873 former inventory label
Conservation
- Ab Hoving, July 2009: cleaned; revarnished
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-873
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
Azimuth compass in a wooden box (NG-MC-873-2), with a separate tripod (NG-MC-873-3) and a compass card box (NG-MC-873-1).
The compass has a fixed pelorus. The eyesight is a combination of a prismatic sight for reading the card and a slit sight with red and a green darkening glass. The hair sight at the other side of the ring is equipped with an adjustable black mirror. The bowl is weighted with lead. Two different locking devices for the compass card are mounted in the bowl. One is a lever with a ring at the end around the pivot, which can lift the card off the pivot. The other is a simple spring pushed against the side of the card. The compass has two green compass cards, both made of paper. The scale, in four quadrants, is printed in mirror writing for the prismatic sight. One card has a metal rim on which the degrees are subdivided into twenty minute graduations. The cards are stored in a separate box beneath two iron clasps with their magnetic poles in a fixed position, so that their magnetic properties are preserved. The tripod has a fork in which the compass can be suspended in its gimbals.
This compass was known as the Patent Azimuth and Surveying Compass. It was probably purchased by Julius Constantijn Rijk (1787-1854) when he visited Portsmouth in 1825 in the sloop of war Pallas.1 According to Obreen it was in regular use on board ships of the Dutch Navy.2
Literature
J.C. Rijk, Generaal Rapport Z.M. Pallas, s.l. 1825, manuscript with 6 appendices in HSM, inv. no. NII (03144), appendix VI; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858; E.G.R. Taylor, The Mathematical Practitioners of Hanoverian England 1714-1840, Cambridge 1966, p. 393, no. 1339; A.A. Lemmers, Techniek op schaal. Modellen en het technologiebeleid van de Marine 1725-1885, Amsterdam 1996, pp. 209-10; D.J. Bryden, ‘Georgian Instrument Patents: some Ghosts and Spectres’, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society 112 (2012), pp. 10-11
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'W. & T. Gilbert, Azimuth Compass with Tripod, London, c. 1810 - c. 1858', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.644037
(accessed 23 November 2024 18:45:47).