Description
Robert Stewart Whipple had a particular interest in the history of optical instruments, especially microscopes. Over the course of his life Whipple would acquire more than two hundred examples—nearly 20% of the objects in his collection. This is one of them, purchased from Whipple's most trusted dealer T.H. Court in 1924.

Like many of his contemporaries, Whipple conceived of the gradual improvement of instruments in evolutionary terms. When microscopes were collected together and displayed chronologically, one could see the step-by-step advancements in optical quality and mechanical design that had led to the state-of-the-art instruments of the present day. In this way, historic instruments were vital material sources for understanding the progress of science itself.
08/10/2025
Created by: Hannah Price on 08/10/2025

Description
The 'culpeper' type microscope

Edmund Culpeper, an instrument maker and engraver of outstanding quality developed the tripod compound microscope in the early 18th century. He mounted the body on two tiers with tripod legs and added a mirror below the stage ( the part that holds the specimen). This made it possible to illuminate the specimen from below without having to hold the instrument to the light.

The 'Culpeper' form of microscope quickly became immensely popular and the design was copied by all the leading instrument makers of the 18th century. The materials used gradually changed as the century progressed, from leather, wood and brass, to all brass by 1800.

More on compound microscopes

Culpeper type microscopes are compound microscopes. The compound microscope was developed during the 17th Century and was closely related to the refracting telescope. Its popularity increased after the publication in 1665 of Robert Hooke’s (1635-1703) Micrographia. Micrographia contained detailed pictures, never before seen, of insects magnified using a compound microscope.

A compound microscope uses two or more lenses. The lenses are held at certain distances from each other and are mounted inside a rigid tube. The tube was usually made from pasteboard, ivory, or most commonly, brass. The basic compound microscope magnifies an image in two stages -

Stage one: Light from a mirror is reflected up through the specimen into a powerful objective lens.

Stage two: The image produced by the objective lens is magnified again by the eye lens, which works like a simple magnifying lens.

The first compound microscope consisted of a simple barrel which would have been held up to the light. Later developments ensured that the compound microscope had a stable base, usually a brass stand and a side pillar.

In the 17th Century, the compound microscope had some serious drawbacks which made it easier to use a simple microscope (which have only one lens) instead. The image produced by a compound microscope was often affected by two types of aberration, known as chromatic and spherical. These aberrations caused blurring to the image (spherical) and the edge of the specimen to colour (chromatic). Chromatic aberration was removed at the end of the 18th Century by Harmanus van Deijlan, an instrument maker in Amsterdam. In 1830, spherical aberration was overcome by Joseph Lister who developed the achromatic lens. Achromatic lenses became widely used in microscopes in the 1850s and are still used today.
30/08/2006
Created by: Corrina Bower; updated by Ruth Horry on 30/08/2006