Connections: before optical glass there was …a furnace?

A few years ago, I came to the somewhat soft conclusion that the world of optical design can be defined to have really started in 1886, when Schott, Abbe, and Zeiss got together and, with the help of new glass formulations, started to design optics, particularly for microscopes.  But then at last fall’s UK Optical Design Meeting, Jon Maxwell, formerly of Imperial College, handed me a paper on one William Vernon Harcourt (1789-1871) and said I “might find it interesting.”  He was right – and it changed my opinion of the origins of optical design.

James Burke’s documentaries, called Connections, have always been very impressive to me, because Burke did a wonderful job explaining how seemingly unconnected scientific discoveries and other historical events build on one another to bring about technological advances. Connections is available on DVD, and some episodes are also on YouTube.

I mention Connections because Harcourt made optical glass 50 years before Schott, but he did it not because he had a passion for glass, but because he had a passion for furnaces.  Harcourt had made essentially the world’s hottest furnace, and there was then a question of what to do with it. At this point, Michael Faraday (1791-1867) apparently broached the idea of using the furnace to make optical glass. Later, G.G. Stokes (1819-1903) moved the ball forward by encouraging Harcourt to try more experiments with optical glasses (at this point Faraday had shifted his focus to electricity). In the 1830s, as science was emerging really for the first time, there was a small group in England that formed under the affiliation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, of which Harcourt was a founding member.  If you’re interested in finding out more about these connections, there’s a nice article by E. Scott Barr in the first volume of Applied Optics, where one finds a story on Stokes.

 
Example of furnace for the manufacture of optical glass, by Henry Bessemer, circa 1850. Bessemer presented a paper on mass production of steel to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1856. Image from Sir Henry Bessemer, F.R.S., An Autobiography, 1905.

For more information:
E. Scott Barr, “Men and Milestones in Optics,” Applied Optics, Vol. 1, No. 1, 69-73 (1962).

M. Cable and J.W. Smedley, “William Vernon Harcourt: pioneer glass scientist and founder of the British Association,” Glass Technology, Vol. 33, 92-97 (1992).

Comments

[David Williamson]

Hi Kevin,

My house in England is Vernon Cottage, Harcourt Rd. - the house was built by Lord Harcourt - I wonder if it was the same guy, or a relative?

Interesting coincidence!