The request for patent information sent me immediately to the booklet 'A
Description of the Dipleidoscope...' by Edward Dent1843, a copy of which
was supplied with his dipleidoscopes. It does not give the patent
number, but one picture of the device E. I. DENT'S PATENT MERIDIAN
INSTRUMENT giving the address 82 Strand & 33 Cockspur St.
The Postscript makes interesting reading and I have included it
below.
I made a few photo copies that were sold on the BSS Bookstall at
Dunchurch last year. If any more are required, I will make them
available for a donation to the BSS of 1.50 pounds each. Anne
Somerville will be proud of me.
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POSTSCRIPT
The origin of the Dipleidoscope resulted from the following
circumstances. The writer had long felt persuaded that the interests of
Horology would be promoted if the public were more generally possessed
of a cheap, simple, and Correct transit-instrument, requiring little or
no scientific knowledge for its right use, and not readily Susceptible
of injury or derangement. To this end he had devoted much time and
thought; and, in 1840, he considered that he had succeeded in inventing
an apparatus which, by means of shadows, would produce the desired
result. This idea he communicated to J. M. Bloxam, Esq., who thereupon
informed him that his own attention had been for some years devoted to
the same object, and that he had contrived an optical arrangement,
which, by the agency of a single and double reflection, determined the
sun's passage over the meridian with great exactness. When the optical
instrument, although complicate in its then form, was shown to the
writer, he was immediately struck with the superiority of the
contrivance over that which had suggested itself to him: his own method
afforded three observations, but it was attended with the defects and
inconvenience which result from the uncertainty of shadows.
Convinced that the reflecting planes would effectually accomplish the
desired end, he entered into an arrangement with Mr. Bloxam to undertake
their manufacture; and, after nearly two years' attention on the part of
that gentleman, and at great labour and expense on the part of the pro
poser, they are now respectfully presented to the public in the present
simple, but most accurate form. The writer, to secure his property in
the instrument, as well as to insure its future perfect manufacture,
solicited the favour of Mr. Bloxam to take out a patent in his own name,
at the expense of the manufacturer, and, for a certain consideration, to
transfer all interest in the invention to him. This request was kindly
acceded to, and accordingly the Dipleidoscope, as an article of
commerce, bears on it the name of the maker and proprietor, E. J. DENT.
Regards,
Mike Cowham.
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