Accession No
6486
Brief Description
collapsible terrestrial globe, in wooden case, by John Betts, English, c. 1860
Origin
England; London
Maker
Betts, John
Class
cartography
Earliest Date
1860
Latest Date
1860
Inscription Date
Material
wood; fabric (canvas); metal
Dimensions
740mm (width)
Special Collection
Provenance
Purchased from Bonham’s Knightsbridge, Montpelier Street, London, SW7 1HH. Lot number 90, Fine Mechanical Music and Scientific Instruments, Wednesday 3/11/2010.
Inscription
BETTS’S PATENT PORTABLE GLOBE
115 Strand London W.C.
(on top and side of case)
Description Notes
Collapsible terrestrial globe, in wooden case, by Betts, English, c. 1860.
Long wooden case with hinged lid (old label marked “Professor C. Searle(?) [illegible]”, with remnants of an older label); inside of lid with a pasted advertisement for other Betts products. Canvas sphere on a collapsable metal frame; cartouche.
Note: the globe opens perfectly well, with no extra damage, and can be kept in the open position if necessary (it was purchased with this in mind).
References
Events
Description
This umbrella globe was a common design found in nineteenth-century English schoolrooms. This example was made by the London globe-maker John Betts (died c. 1863). Betts was a specialist maker of educational products, who first produced the ingenious “umbrella” globe around 1850. By using a collapsible umbrella mechanism to support printed cloth sections, Betts was able to market a globe that was both large enough to use for teaching, but also portable when collapsed. The educationalists Richard Edgeworth (1744–1817) and his daughter Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) make reference to an inflatable globe in their Practical Education (1798) when they wrote: ‘To assist our pupils in geography we prefer a globe to common maps. Might not a cheap, portable, and convenient globe be made of oiled silk, to be inflated by a common par of bellows?’ Folding globes continued to be published until the 1920’s by George Philip & Son, Ltd
14/01/2014
Created by: Allison Ksiazkiewicz on 14/01/2014
FM:46996
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