Beginning in the late 17th century, English insurance companies maintained private fire brigades that were paid to respond to fires at properties they insured. Properties were identified by leaden badges (fire marks) bearing a insurance company’s emblem and often stamped with the customer’s policy number.
The Birmingham Fire Office Company of Birmingham, England issued this copper fire mark between 1805 and 1867. The circular mark features a raised image of a fireman alongside a hand pumped fire engine. Underneath the image is raised text that reads “Birmingham.” The company was founded in 1805 and operated until 1867, when it was taken over by the Lancashire Insurance Company.
A bicycle pump made of cream celluloid with metal fittings. It was made in England. A trademark etched into the barrel depicts a man in Elizabethan clothing holding a shield with the letters "R I."
In a constant deviation spectrometer, the collimator and telescope are fixed in place, and the observed wavelength is varied by rotating the prism or diffraction grating in the central box. The “ADAM HILGER LTD / LONDON / ENGLAND” inscription on the eyepiece of this example identifies the manufacturer. The “JAMES G. BIDDLE / PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.” inscription on a brass plate identifies the firm that brought the instrument into the United States.
Adam Hilger, Ltd. introduced its first constant deviation spectrometer in 1904, noting that the prism was designed by Messrs. Pellin & Broca, and described in the Journal de Physique in 1899. The form proved remarkably successful, and remained on the market for decades. This example, made between 1914 and 1926, is a Modified Wavelength Spectrometer. Here, the arm between the collimator and the prism is designed to hold one of three high-resolution, multiple-beam interferometers: a Michelson echelon diffraction grating, a Lummer-Gehrcke parallel plate, and a Fabry-Perot etalon.
Ref: Arthur H. Thomas Company, Laboratory Apparatus and Reagents (Philadelphia, 1914), p. 495.
Noah Rindos, “A Constant Deviation Wavelength Spectrometer Made by Adam Hilger, Ltd.,” Rittenhouse 12 (1998): 25-29.
Charlotte Bigg, “Adam Hilger, Ltd and the Development of Spectrochemical Analysis,” in Peter J. T. Morris, ed., From Classical to Modern Chemistry. The Instrumental Revolution (London, 2002), pp. 111-129.
According to the accompanying instruction book, this is “the world’s first electronic desk calculator.” The full-keyboard, non-printing calculator has ten columns of plastic keys and shows 12-digit results. A column of keys for multiplication is on the left. Keys for arithmetic operations and for clearance are at the front. The machine used vacuum tubes—later electronic calculators would have transistors and then microchips.
The Anita Mark VIII was one of two electronic calculators developed by the British Bell Punch Company in a team led by Norbert Kitz. Kitz had obtained an advanced degree in computer science at the University of London in 1951, studying under computer pioneer Andrew Booth. He applied for a patent for an “electronic calculating machine” as early as 1957. By 1961, Bell Punch exhibited its Mark VII and Mark VIII electronic calculators at trade fairs.
A mark on the front of the machine read: ANITA. A tag on the bottom reads near the top: MODEL NO. C/VII/I006852/A. The tag also includes an extensive list of patent and patent application numbers. The last British patent listed is 868761, which was issued May 25, 1961. A mark on the plastic cover for the machine reads: ANITA
The operating instructions for the Mark VIII received with the machine were distributed by the Inter-Continental Trading Corporation of New York, N.Y. Also received with the machine is a booklet of operating instructions for the Anita Mark 9, a similar machine.
Norbert Kitz filed for a U.S. patent for this machine December 9, 1961(he had filed for earlier U.S. patents in 1957 and 1959), and was granted it October 18, 1966.
References:
Norbert Kitz, "Key Controlled Decimal Electronic Calculating Machine," U.S. Patent 3,280,315, October 18, 1966. There are extensive online discussions of the Anita electronic calculators.