Dissecting or 'Simple' microscope.

item details

NameDissecting or 'Simple' microscope.

ProductionAndrew Ross; manufacturer(s); circa 1850; England

Classificationmicroscopes

Materialsbrass, glass, wood, leather, velvet

DimensionsOverall: 162mm (width), 125mm (height), 132mm (depth)

Registration NumberGH021924

Credit linePurchased 2012

Overview

This lacquered brass dissecting microscope, made by Andrew Ross of London, was sent to William Colenso by Sir Joseph Hooker in 1885. Colenso and Hooker shared a love of botany and although they met only once in 1841, they collaborated and corresponded for more than fifty years.

Joseph Dalton Hooker came to New Zealand in 1841 as the assistant-surgeon and naturalist on HMS Erebus. He met William Colenso, a printer for the Church Missionary Society and amateur botanist, in the Bay of Islands, and with fellow botanist Andrew Sinclair they carried out numerous botanical expeditions. During his three-month stay in New Zealand Hooker collected approximately 300 specimens.

For decades thereafter Colenso sent botanical specimens to Hooker for description and classification. Hooker published numerous works on the botany of places he’d visited, securing his reputation as a leading figure in European science. Flora Novae-Zelandiæ (1852- 1855) was an expansive and extravagant study of New Zealand flora, later distilled into the popular text Handbook of the New Zealand Flora (1864-1867). Both works drew on observations and specimens provided by Colenso and other local naturalists.

Colenso published his own botanical research in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute. In 1884 he sent Hooker £40 and asked if he could find him a microscope suitable for the detailed description of mosses and hepatica. After Colenso’s death in 1899 the microscope was given to his friend Henry Hill, and then found its way to Napier pharmacist C.L. Thomas. Te Papa purchased it in 2012.

References

Galloway, D.J. 1998. ‘Joseph Hooker, Charles Knight, and the Commissioning of New Zealand’s First Popular Flora: Hooker’s Handbook of the New Zealand Flora (1864-1867)'. Tuhinga 10 (: 31-62.
Mackay, David. 1990. 'Colenso, William.' Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1c23/colenso-william
Simpson, K.A. 1990. 'Hooker, Joseph Dalton.' Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1h33/hooker-joseph-dalton
White, Rebekah. 2018. ‘The Plant Hunter.’ New Zealand Geographic 151. https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-plant-hunter/