Accession No
6214
Brief Description
Whipple Temperature Indicator, by Cambridge Instrument Company Ltd., English, 1951
Origin
England; Cambridge
Maker
Cambridge Instrument Company Ltd.
Class
electrical; metrology
Earliest Date
1951
Latest Date
1951
Inscription Date
Material
wood (teak); plastic; metal (steel, brass); paper
Dimensions
width 345mm; depth 235mm; height 255mm
Special Collection
Provenance
Donated by an individual on or before 15/02/2008.
Inscription
Cambridge Instrument Co. Ltd.
London and Cambridge
C 544536
Description Notes
Whipple Temperature Indicator, by Cambridge Instrument Company, 1951.
Teak case with hinged lid. Printed instructions on how to use the indicator are pinned to the inside of the lid.
Top of case exposed once lid is lifted. Top consists of a black plastic board with inset glass window showing farenheit temperature scale (which is on a rotating barrel) with arrow labels indicating ‘RISE’ and ‘FALL’. This display is altered manually my rotating the barrel using the large plastic knob inset into the right-side of the box. To the left of this scale is 2 pairs of screw barrel terminals, marked “P” and “C”. Above these is a terminal marked “ICE BOBBIN” with a standard coil bridge attached. To the right of this is another inset glass window showing temperature “FALL” and “RISE” with a needle indicator centred on 0 on a scale graduated either side by 1 degree seperation. The scale is marked 40 ohms. Above this window is a protruding black cylinder with a switch on top that can be set between “CLAMP” and “FREE”. Below the window is a button marked “DEPRESS TO READ” and to the button’s left a knob for “LEADS ADJUSTMENT”
On the back of the box are two circular caps behind which are the compartments for batteries (no batteries present in this object).
References
Events
Description
R.S. Whipple’s interest in historic scientific artefacts stemmed from his day job making instruments in Cambridge.
Whipple joined the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company in 1898, rapidly rising to become its Managing Director in 1905 and ultimately its Chairman in 1938. Over this period, Whipple helped grow the firm from a small specialist maker into an international company with thousands of employees and a world-class reputation in a wide variety of areas.
Whipple was designer of scientific instruments as well as a business manager. His most successful invention was this instrument, which uses the variation in resistance of a platinum wire to measure temperature across a massive range – 1200 degrees C. Whipple patented the design in 1902 and it was still in production half a century later. The Company claimed in their 1904 catalogue that: "By means of this instrument any workman, without electrical knowledge, can learn the temperature of his furnace or source of heat in two or three minutes."
17/10/2025
Created by: Hannah Price on 17/10/2025
Description
This instrument shows direct readings from an attached resistance thermometer. The Indicator can be a considerable distance from the thermometer without affecting the accuracy of the readings, which meant it could be installed in a convenient location, saving time and and reducing the need to disturb the conditions being measured. Robert Stewart Whipple designed the Indicator for Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company in 1902 as an improvement on the Callendar Recorder.
Robert S. Whipple (1871-1953), whose father George was the Superintendent of Kew Observatory, joined Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company in 1898 as personal assistant to the Company’s co-founder, Horace Darwin. Whipple had previously worked as an assistant at Kew, and assistant manager for L. P. Casella. He became Managing Director of CSIC in 1905, and served as Chairman from 1935 until 1950, remaining a Director until his death. In 1944, Whipple donated his private collection of historic scientific instruments to the University of Cambridge, founding the Whipple Museum.
31/03/2020
Created by: Morgan Bell on 31/03/2020
FM:46685
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