RT Journal Article
T1 Reading, writing, drawing and making
A1 Florence Grant
YR 2014
VO 1
IS Spring 2014
K1 commonplacing
K1  cut and paste
K1  George III
K1  George Adams
K1  imitation
K1  philosophical instruments
K1  print
K1  Willem ’s Gravesande
AB When George Adams assembled a large collection of philosophical instruments for King George III in the early 1760s, he drew on a variety of printed books as sources of experiments and instrument designs. Most important of these was Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy by the Dutch mathematician and philosopher Willem ’s Gravesande, whose own collection of instruments is now in the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden. Papers in the Science Museum archives reveal the specific practices through which Adams used books such as Mathematical Elements in the course of his business. These techniques included commonplacing, a widespread method for organising information in the early-modern period; and physically cutting and pasting fragments from engraved illustrations into new drawings, as part of the process of design. These practices connected mobile print with local networks of production. They fundamentally shaped the group of instruments Adams made for George III, and constitute a material link between two important collections of 18th-century instruments: those of ’s Gravesande in Leiden, and those of George III at the Science Museum in London.
NO These manuscripts exist in multiple versions. The Science Museum holds a fair, complete copy of the pneumatics manuscript (Adams, 1761a), as well as a draft text (Adams, 1761b) and sketches for the illustrations (Adams, 1761c). The fair copy of the mechanics manuscript in the Science Museum archives (Adams, 1762a) lacks the finished illustrations, but is accompanied by sketches (Adams, 1762b); there are also additional sketches of George III’s instruments (Adams, n.d.). The Royal Library at Windsor Castle holds fair, bound copies of both manuscripts (Morton and Wess, 1993, pp 243–6; Millburn, 2000, pp 100–2).
NO In the 18th century the works of antiquity, or books representing them, were discussed as ‘magazines’ of designs for artists and artisans to imitate (Reynolds, 1992, p 167; Coltman, 2006, pp 70, 78).
NO Richard Yeo (2001, pp 101–19) has argued that the tradition of commonplaces profoundly informed early-18th-century encyclopaedic projects, such as Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia.
NO Adams’s manuscripts and instruments for George III cover Mathematical Elements, Books I and II on mechanics, and Book IV on pneumatics.
NO The ‘whirling Speculum’ was a form of artificial horizon, a device that provided the constantly level plane needed to make astronomical observations from the deck of a moving ship (Morton and Wess, 1993, pp 340–1).
NO The ten large-scale machines are: ‘A Machine whereby the properties of the Wedge are demonstrated’ (Adams, 1762b, fig. 111; Adams, 1762a, f 55; Morton and Wess, 1993, pp 322–3); ‘A Machine for Experiments concerning Oblique and Compound Collision’ (Adams, 1762b, fig. 150; Adams, 1762a, f 92; Morton and Wess, 1993, p 343); ‘A Machine to shew that a Weight thrown up from a body in motion, will fall down upon the same point that it falls upon when the body is at rest’ (Adams, 1762b, fig. 151; Adams, 1761a, f 93); ‘A Machine to compare the ascent of bodies with their descent’ (Adams, 1762b, fig. 152; Adams, 1762a, f 94); ‘A Machine to shew that a body thrown parpendicularly upwards through a tube as it is in motion altho’ it describes a curve will fall upon the same point that it falls upon when it is at rest’ (Adams, 1762b, fig. 160; Adams, 1762a, f 101; Morton and Wess, 1993, p 348); ‘A Machine whereby the Experiments on central forces are demonstrated’ (Adams, 1762b, fig. 163; Adams, 1762a, f 102; Morton and Wess, 1993, pp 350–1); ‘A Machine whereby Experiments are made on a Pendulum moved by the action of a spring’ (Adams, 1762b, fig. 181; Adams, 1762a, f 112; Morton and Wess, 1993, p 355); ‘A Machine whereby Experiments on innate forces and the collision of Bodies are made’ (Adams, 1762b, fig. 194; Adams, 1762a, f 116; Morton and Wess, 1993, p 357); ‘A Machine whereby the forces of bodies falling directly are compared’ (Adams, 1762b, fig. 205; Adams, 1762a, f 119; Morton and Wess, 1993, p 359); ‘A Machine Shewing that the velocity of Falling Bodies is accellerated every moment’ (Adams, 1762b, fig. 221; Adams, 1762a, f 193).
NO Adams was familiar with Hooke’s Micrographia (1665), which was one of the sources of both text and illustrations for Adams’s own Micrographia illustrata.
NO Sun Insurance Policy Registers, London Metropolitan Archives, MSS 11936, Vols. 118–33
NO The instrument-maker Edward Nairne (1726–1806) had metal stolen from him on more than one occasion, and the trial records are particularly revealing of the ways that brass moved around the city. See trial of David Macauly, June 1758, The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, t17580628-19, http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?ref=t17580628-19 (accessed 7 March 2014).
NO One useful source is the French lecturer Jean Antoine Nollet’s account of basic workshop tools and processes, intended to help experimenters in the provinces make and repair instruments (1770).
PB The Science Museum Group
SN 2054-5770
LA eng
DO 10.15180/140103
UL http://journal.sciencemuseum.org.uk/browse/2014/reading-writing-drawing-and-making/
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WT Science Museum Group Journal
OL 30