Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

Microscope 382 (assigned to Robert Field; Teasdale's Field Naturalist's Microscope; c. 1880)

Robert Field, Senior, was born in about 1787, in Birmingham, England, and was recorded as being an optician on all of his children’s christening records. Philip Carpenter (1776 - 1833) started an optical and scientific instrument shop in about 1808 in Birmingham and his heirs sold it to Robert Field, Senior, in 1837. The business became Robert Field and Son in 1845. The firm traded from 113 New Street, Birmingham, from 1845 until 1851, and then from Suffolk Street until well after 1863. The 1851 census found the whole family at the New Street location. Robert Field, Sr., died in 1851 and the business was thereafter operated by Robert Field, Junior, as “R. Field and Son”. Robert Field, Jr. probably sold the business in the early 1870s and died in 1883, at the age of only 54 years old. R. Field & Son is primarily known for the prize they won from the Society of Arts in 1855. The Society of Arts, in London, requested applications for two different microscope types and Field was awarded the top prize for each. One prize was for a compound student microscope to be provided for 3 Guineas or less. The other award was for a mechanically and optically simple school microscope, to be provided for 10 shillings, 6 pence, or less. R. Field and Son also sold a compound version of the school microscope, which presumably sold for a higher price. In addition, the Field businesses produced more complex, expensive microscopes, and a wide variety of other scientific and mathematical instruments.

Microscope 381 is a wooden, simple dissecting microscope. The instrument is not signed but is attributed to Robert Field and should be dated to c. 1880. This dissecting microscope was described in the 1882 volume of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society (JRMS; Figure 1), and by Brian Bracegirdle in his 2005 catalogue of the microscopy collections at the science museum, London, Little Imp Publications. In the JRMS, this instrument was described as: “Teasdale's Field Naturalist's Microscope … is made by Messrs. Field of Birmingham, and was designed by Mr. W. Teasdale with the view of providing the working microscopist with a really cheap and efficient dissecting microscope, and it may be readily certified that it fully accomplishes these objects. "It is so simply and substantially made that it may be used by an intelligent child, as well as by the experienced microscopist. It was termed a Field Naturalist rather than a Dissecting Microscope to disarm the suspicion with which some people look upon an instrument with the latter name as a rack or means of torture for frogs".

Washington Teasdale (1830 – 1903) was educated in civil engineering and worked in India, on the subcontinent’s railway system. After returning to England, Teasdale inherited his grandfather’s estate and dedicated his time to scientific endeavours. He was a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, and a member of numerous local scientific and other organizations. Teasdale designed his wooden-framed simple microscope in c. 1876, of which microscope 382 is an example (Figure 2). These microscopes were then manufactured and sold by Robert Field.

Note: this instrument was kindly donated by Dave Levell (Pembrokeshire, Wales) in May 2023.

Figure 1. Teasdale's Field Naturalist's Microscope as engraved in the 1882 volume of the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society.

Figure 2. Washington Teasdale with his Field naturalist’s microscope (adapted from www.themicroscopist.net).