Description
Robert Stewart Whipple (1871-1953) had a life-long connection with the world of scientific instruments. After starting his career at Kew Observatory and the instrument firm L. P. Casella, he moved to Cambridge in 1898 to work as personal assistant to Horace Darwin, the founder of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company, rising to become Managing Director of this firm and ultimately its Chairman. His interest in the practice of science and its history lead him to amass an outstanding collection of antique scientific instruments and antiquarian books, which in 1944 he donated to the University of Cambridge to form the basis of a new museum and library. Whipple was keen for these new institutions to play an active role in research and teaching, and both would go on to serve as the centre around which the University’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science was established.

(label from Discoveries exhibition at Two Temple Place, London 2014)
30/01/2014
Created by: Joshua Nall [label from Discoveries exhibition at Two Temple Place, London 2014] on 30/01/2014