BOOKPLATES OF MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETIES

The bookplate of the Bristol Microscopical Society (England) is one of the most delightful of all microscopical bookplates (Figure 7).  The original of the design was drawn by Ruffle (due to poor printing, this often appears as Buffle), a member of the Quekett Microscopical Club, and was titled “Ye Mikroskopiker’s Arms.”  I first saw it in a supplement to the Journal of the Quekett Microscopical Club.  The escutcheon (shield on which armorial bearings are displayed) contains a number of items related to microscopy, including a cross-section of the eye, and prisms and lenses at the top; a variety of microscopical test objects in the lower right, including markings on diatoms, and the scale of Podura; at the lower left are a number of microscopic plants and animals, including desmids, diatoms, Vorticella, rotifers, and algae.  Above the escutcheon, the crest consists of a microscope in inclined position, described as rampant (this term usually applies to an animal, such as a lion, in profile, rearing on hind legs).  To either side of the escutcheon are the supporters (this usually refers to one or two figures, men or animals) which here consist of Daphnia pulex, the water-flea, on the left, and Sida crystallina on the right.  At the base, in the banner, is the motto: De minimis non curat lex, the smallest (minutiae) are not the business of the law; i.e., the very smallest things are the concern of the microscopist.  This same design has been incorporated into personal bookplates, as we shall see later, in, for example, the bookplate of Charles Bestow.

click image to enlarge (96K) Figure 7

If you look at the head of this @ the EyePoint column, you will see how this basic design idea was also incorporated here.

W. Watson & Sons, Ltd., the British microscope manufacturers founded in 1837, also adapted this basic design (Figure 8) in their announcement of The Third Annual Exhibition of Microscopes, held in London in 1935 (note the objective, eyepiece, and condenser in the lower right of the escutcheon).   
     

click image to enlarge (211K) Figure 8

The Manchester Microscopical Society (England) founded in 1880, has, as the principal pictorial on its bookplate (Figure 9), a microscopic object, a budding hydra, rather than a microscope.  The book that this appeared in was evidently a 1946 donation to the Society on the part of A.P. Bradshaw.

click image to enlarge (60K) Figure 9

click image to enlarge (100K) Figure 10

The State Microscopical Society of Illinois (SMSI) was founded in 1868, and received its State Charter in 1869.  Its bookplate (Figure 10) bears a photographic image of a splendid microscope made by Walter H. Bullock.  The address at the bottom of the bookplate is that of The Chicago Academy of Sciences, the Society’s home for about a hundred years, but no longer; SMSI moved to other quarters about 20 years ago.

The Bulloch microscope depicted is especially appropriate for this Society, because Walter Bulloch had his shop in Chicago, and he was the first known maker of microscopes west of Philadelphia (more can be read about Walter H. Bulloch and his microscopes in Don Padgitt’s A Short History of the Early American Microscopes, Microscope Publications Ltd., Chicago, 1975).  The microscope, signed W.H. Bulloch, Chicago, was introduced before 1876, and improved in 1877 and 1879; it is one of the microscopes in the Society’s collection.  The photograph of the microscope, and the bookplate, were made in 1968.