Description
R.S. Whipple’s interests as a collector included objects from the everyday world. He was particularly beguiled by two popular ways to improve eyesight: spectacles and opera glasses. Whilst today we might not think of these items as ‘scientific’, in the 18th and 19th century both were often the bread-and-butter trade of optical instrument-makers.


17/10/2025
Created by: Hannah Price on 17/10/2025

Description
Spectacles
Usually consisting of a pair of lenses held in a frame, spectacles may have originated in the ancient civilizations of China and the Mediterranean, but early forms were crude. It was only in the 18th century that the grinding of lenses became sufficiently advanced to make then really effective for correcting sight defects. In order to correct for near sightedness, the lenses must be concave, which diverges the rays of light (angles them apart), and for long sightedness they must be convex, to angle the rays of light together.

Spectacles are not solely used for defective eyesight; the Inuit and the Yupik use wooden spectacles with very small slits in them to reduce the glare from snow and ice.