Updates & Items of Interest

The RNLI at 200

A national lifeboat service was the vision of Sir William Hillary, a resident of the Isle of Man, who wanted to the reduce the death toll from the 1,800 shipwrecks annually around the British Isles at the time. He convinced a group of influential people in the City of London to take notice and the Royal National Institution for the...

Mark and Vavasseur Antiques Featured in Country Life!

Credit: Country Life, 27 September 2023 Issue www.countrylife.co.uk

Hysteresis and the Watkin Hicks Mountain Barometer

This scarce development of the aneroid barometer or altimeter, patented by Colonel H.S.S. Watkin in 1898, was born of poorly performing pressure sensing capsules. It had been known for some time that a first reading before an ascent of some high place would not agree once the observer returned to the same elevation even if the barometric pressure had not...

About Vavasseur Antiques

INTRODUCTION – Mark Jarrold

My formative years instilled in me a great interest in antiques, living in old houses full of the old, the very old and the curious…and that was just the people! Many of the items I marvelled at, and came to appreciate for what they were and are – a few were quite beyond my comprehension. To be surrounded by items of beauty, interest and association is great privilege indeed. I don’t believe in the term expert since it tends to convey an impression of perfect knowledge. We all learn a little more all the time, given application, and occasionally there may be a ‘eureka’ moment. Analysis of the more interesting pieces is completely compelling: the discovery of a name, a date, a variation in design or pattern is always a draw. One learns something of social demography, engineering and science, sometimes all in one hit. Unfortunately, I am old enough (just) to remember the first electronic calculator, the Sinclair Scientific. The impact these new devices had upon so many disciplines cannot be overstated – so, in the mid-19th century, had the aneroid barometer. A barometer that was without mercury, was light, portable and very accurate: it was the ‘had-to-have’ thing.

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Vavasseur Laboratory Test Equipment
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Vavasseur Antiques Gallery Jan 2023