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Inventory no. 40241 - Former Display Label

English SEAMAN'S QUADRANT c.1748

Signed: "COLE Inventer [sic] and Maker at Ye ORRERY in Fleet Street
LONDON No. 200".

Radius of divided arc 9' (230 mm); length of longer arm and of movable
arm 18.5' (471 mm). Made of mahogany, with brass vanes (broken off)
and boxwood scale divided 0°-90° and 90°-0° by 20 minutes, gradu-
ations running 5° beyond at each end. A vernier is cut in the brass
pointer on the movable arm, 0'-10' (gap) 10'-20'.

Benjamin Cole (1695-1766) was a mathematical and optical instrument-
maker who took over the shop of Thomas Wright in 1748. The shop
was at the sign of the Orrery, two doors above the Globe Tavern in Fleet
Street, London, later numbered 136 Fleet Street. Cole was proud of his
"New Quadrant", and he published an account of it in 1748. It was
intended as an improvement on the familiar backstaff. It did not, however,
become popular because a rival instrument, the octant, soon established
itself as the favourite of the navigator. After 1766, the business was
continued by the son, also Benjamin (1725-1813), and the premises were
taken over in 1782 by John Troughton.

Benjamin Cole Senior was born in Oxford in 1695, to a local engraver
and surveyor, also Benjamin. The Museum has a universal ring dial
that was owned by this man [79-63]. The Science Museum, London, has
an example of a Cole quadrant, serial no. 133. Another example is in
a collection in Leningrad.

[83-16] Purchase

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