Tunbridge Ware Thermometer with Compass c1860

Date : c1860

Period : Victoria

Origin : Tunbridge Wells, Kent

Decoration : Octaognal panels with stylised floral mosaics, stickewar layer avove the base which has foliate banding within keylines. Stamped E Nye above the thermometer.

Size : 8.7×8.7cm base, 13.2cm height

Condition : No tesserae loss and minimal age related wear, both the compass and thermometer work. The thermometer has, however, snapped at the top – although this has been repaired it does not reach the upper clamp and is consequently a little loose.

Restoration : None

Weight : 238 grams

A Thomas Barton design for Edmund Nye.

The Réaumur scale was the first to set the freezing point of water at zero degrees although, unlike centigrade, the boiling point is 80. It was first divised in 1730 by Rene Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur in 1730 and is referenced in the works Mann, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Joyce and Tolstoy.

Nye, like his predecessor Fenner, most likely made this to appeal to the foreign tourist market – likely in areas not conquered by Napoleon who implemented the use of celsius throughout his Empire in keeping with the Revolution’s commitement to the metric system.