Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

 

      

Microscope 84 (J Parkes & Son; worker model; c. 1900)

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Based in Birmingham, England, Parkes produced good quality microscopes and other scientific equipment and supplies from the mid-1800s until well into the twentieth century. Recognizing the burgeoning market of students and middle-class amateurs, they focused on inexpensive instruments. James Parkes began his business in 1815 as a manufacturer of small items such as jewellery cases and other metal devices. James’ only son, Samuel, became a partner in about 1846, forming J Parkes and Son. By the 1850s, J. Parkes and Son were producing a variety of microscopes. Their 1857 catalogue prominently featured microscopes and prepared slides. Large numbers are known of later microscope models that were manufactured by J Parkes and Son but sold by other retailers. Samuel continued the business under the same name after his father’s death in 1877. Samuel had only one son, also named Samuel. That son, and a nephew, James Moulton, continued the business after the elder Samuel died in 1896. Moulton left the partnership in 1908, and Samuel T.H. Parkes continued alone for a number of additional years, at least until the late 1920s. Microscope 84 is a Parkes’ “Worker” microscope, originally introduced during the 1890s and which remained in production well into the twentieth century (Figure 1). Worker microscopes could be fitted with a wheel of apertures or have a microscope objective easily used as a condenser. The finish is mostly oxidized brass with some accents in lacquered polished brass. The mirror is both plane and concave. Parker microscopes usually show the Parkes & Son signature or the Parkes' trademark of an ‘eye’. However, large numbers of microscopes were produced with the brass plate unsigned for a retailer to affix his own signature. Microscope 84 contains the Parkes's trademark of an ‘eye’.

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Figure 1. Illustration of the Parkes’s Worker microscope model as shown in an advertisement in the 1898 ‘Illustrated Annual of Microscopy’ (left) and in a 1914 advertisement from a Newcastle optical shop (right).

 

References

J. Parkes and Son (http://microscopist.net/ParkesJ.html), last accessed on 12.08.2020

The illustrated annual of microscopy (1898)

 

LAST EDITED: 15.08.2020