Late Eighteenth Century Desktop Library Telescope by George Adams of Fleet Street

For sale a late eighteenth century achromatic desktop library telescope by George Adams of Fleet Street. London.

A telescope of outstanding quality from one of the foremost London scientific instrument makers of the period, it is comprised of a 29 inch tapering main barrel with a two inch objective couplet lens arrangement, a rack and pinion movement for fine focussing and the maker’s name “G. Adams, London” expertly engraved to the top of the tube.

The fine focus rack and pinion movement operates a short 2 inch draw tube with a further hand adjustable 16” draw tube incorporated within, making a fully extended length of around 46 inches and maintaining good optics.

The body of the telescope is rested upon a solid brass 16 inch high tripod base with tapering shaft upon articulated legs. The sheer quality and attention to detail of this piece is unmistakable from the tripod feet reminiscent of furniture from the period, to the knurled screws that affix the telescope to its base and for the lightness of touch to the instrument itself. This level of craftsmanship simply does not exist anymore, and is a sheer pleasure.

Although the output of George Adams Senior and George Adams Junior is often difficult to distinguish, the telescope was almost certainly manufactured by the son of this famous dynasty given that it contains an achromatic lens.

George Adams Senior was born in Fleet Street, London in 1709 to a Morris and Mary Adams. His Father was a freeman of London and belonged to the Loriner’s Company and although he was a liveryman, was actually a cook by trade. At the age of fifteen (1724), George was apprenticed to a James Parker, a mathematical instrument maker of the Grocer’s Company for a premium of £20. His initial two years were not without difficulty as his father Morris died the following year leaving George, his mother Mary and two further children without support and the following year also saw the death of his master. By good fortune, George was turned over to a new master Thomas Heath who had by then been trading on The Strand for just six years but ran a successful and enterprising establishment and his adverts from the period attest to the wide range of instruments that the young Adams would have been tasked to manufacture. On completion of his seven year tenure, he chose to continue his work for Heath, only being granted his freedom of the Grocer’s Company in 1733 by which point his mother had also passed away. It is likely then that the proceeds of his parent’s estate was the catalyst for George Adams to begin trading in his own right.

The establishment of his business at the sign of Tycho Brahe’s Head on Fleet Street was close to his home in Shoe Lane but he joined a community of already established scientific instrument makers in that area and could guarantee a certain amount of passing trade from the positioning. He also kept up his ties with Thomas Heath which is evidenced from dual advertisements that were taken out by the pair in the mid-1730’s. His prominence as an instrument maker really took off in the 1740’s where he began to undertake work for both The Board of Ordnance and The East India Company. It was also the decade in which the microscope began to ascend in its popularity and Adams, seeing an opportunity, undertook to write the first of his two famous publications. This initial publication, “Micrographia Illustrata” was introduced in 1746 at the same time as his New Universal Microscope and must have been timed to support his instrument’s release to the market but the book was in its majority a compilation of many previously known publications but served to provide his audience with instruction and a full account of the possible uses to which this instrument could be applied.

Tragedy struck Adams again in the same year with his wife Ann’s death, leaving him with two young daughter