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Microscope Museum Collection of antique microscopes and other
scientific instruments |
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Microscope
55 (WR Prior;
1951)
WR Prior & Co Ltd was founded by Walter Robert Prior
in 1919. The company was originally located at Eagle Street, Holborn, London
and later at Devonshire Street, London. Little is known about the Company
during this time and no records or catalogues exist as to when and why they
began to produce microscopes under the Prior name. A WR Prior catalogue of
microscopes and accessories dated 1950 gives the location of the office as
Devonshire Street and the factory as Bishop’s Stortford, Herts., England,
where manufacturing was carried out from 1942 to 1957. On 10 January 1947
Walter Robert Prior died at the early age of 55. The company relocated to a
new factory at London Road, Bishop Stortford in 1956 and continued to produce
and develop new microscopes. By 1960, Prior and Charles Perry merged together but kept their separate names until about
1970. In 1978 WR Prior & Co Ltd was acquired by The Gwyndann
Group of Companies and the name of the company was changed in 1979 to that of
Prior Scientific Instruments Ltd. In 1981 Prior Scientific Instruments Ltd
merged with James Swift and Son Ltd (founded in the mid 19th
century). Fire at the Bishop Stortford factory in 1988 meant the company had
to relocate to its present site in Fulbourn,
Cambridge, England, offering precision mechanical engineering, optics, electronics and precision assembly. Expanding its
operation further the company opened a new office in 1991, Prior Scientific
Inc, based in the USA, in 2008 Prior GMBH in Jena, Germany, in 2010 Prior KK
in Tokyo, Japan and in 2018 Prior China. Microscope 55 was produced by WR
Prior and dates from 1951. It is signed ‘Prior London’ and has the serial
number 14669 engraved on the tube. The microscope came with a wooden box
including a guarantee with the date ‘August 1951’ and the indication of the
microscope number as 14069. It is unclear if this hand-written number on the
guarantee is a typo (and one ‘6’ was mistakenly replaced by ‘0’). LAST EDITED: 28.08.2020 |
