Records of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers, including registers of freedom admissions 1699-1873; apprentice bindings 1694-1860; charters; ordinances; grant of arms; Court minute books; financial accounts and rent ledger.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING ACCESS: These records are stored at the Guildhall Library site rather than the LMA Clerkenwell site. Researchers wishing to access these records should do so at the Guildhall Library Rare Books table. The Library is open Monday to Saturday, 9:30 to 16:45. Researchers will need to have an Archives History Card or a Library Readers Card. An archivist will be available at Guildhall Library on Thursday mornings to answer any queries.

Papers of Georges Marc Marie Sagnac including holograph papers relating to Roentgen Rays, experiments on sulphur, on optics, light- and sound-waves, and on the ether, 1897-1921.

Letter from Peter Dolland of London to an unknown recipient, 20 Aug 1803. Discussing an order given for instruments, including compasses, ivory scales, and 'the case of drawing instruments which you desire in every particular to be very good and yet you seem to expect the price to be very low'. Mentioning alternative types and prices of some instruments.

Autograph, signed 'P. & J. Dollond'.

These records of the Dollond family, optical instrument makers, comprise family and estate papers and business records.

Legal papers relating to this partnership and dispute between partners over credit for inventing plastic optical lens, 1935-1938, 1944.

Some observations on the crystalline lens by C Harris, including numerous graphs, prepared for the Glassworkers Cataract Committee, but never used.

Commonplace books of extracts and notes from works published mainly during the last quarter of the 17th century and early 18th century, relating to science, medicine and mathematics. Written mainly in Latin or Italian, but with some entries in French. Author's holograph MSS. Illustrated by numerous folding and other pen-drawn diagrams and figures, and a few wash-drawings. The numeration of the volumes has been added.

Vol. I In universam scientiam mechanicam institutiones (80 ll. 3 folding pen-and-wash drawings). II Optica. Catoptrica. Dioptrica (56 ll. 4 folding pen-drawings). III Extracts and notes mainly in Latin, but a few in French on medical, scientific, mathematical and philosophical works, mostly published between c 1685 and 1700: with notices of others on Church history and doctrine, Jansenists, etc. There is a long entry towards the end of the volume on the 'Medicina mentis' by Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhausen [1651-1708], (352 ll. 1 folding wash-drawing, 8 folding pen-drawings, wash-and pen-drawing in the text). IV A similar collection, but with a preponderance of entries in French, included in which is a long article under the title: 'La vie de demoiselle Antoinette Bourignon [1616-1680], écrite par elle-même [etc.]' Amsterdam. 1683. The date 1705 is found on the verso of the last leaf (312 ll., 5 folding pen-drawings, and a few marginal pen-drawn figures, etc.) V Notes and extracts on geometry, mechanics, optics, physics, etc. on Cartesian principles: in Italian and Latin. At the end is a long entry entitled: 'Fisica generale sopra il lume, ed i colori per il P. Mallebranche (i.e. Nicolas de Malebranche [1638-1715]) dall'Istoria dell'Accademia delle Scienze, 1699' (224 ll. 6 folding pen-drawings). VI Netwon (Sir I.). Optica: in Latin (160 ll. 11 folding pen-drawings and marginal pen-drawn figures, etc.). VII Extracts from Newton's works on astronomy: conics, mechanics, physics, etc.: in Latin (246 ll., 10 folding pen-drawn figures, etc.). VIII Extracts on astronomy, geography, geometry, and chronology: in Latin. Written in 1713 'in hoc anno'. An added note on the first page contains the date 1714 (208 ll. 8 folding pen-drawn figures, and marginal figures, 1 folding Table). IX Sanctorius (S.). Ex commentariis in Avicennam et in Aphoirismos Hippocratis (256 ll.). A note on 'Colica' in Aphorism XXV is dated 1716. X Extracts and notes from 17th cent. medical works, notes of cases, medical receipts, etc.: in Latin (196 ll.). Illustrated with a full-page pen-drawing of a male head. Against this Marmi has written: 'Exhibeo schema communicatum mihi ab excellentissimo D[octore] Schustonio [?] Practico Esslingense ... Elegantissime Burrhus eques Mediolani (i.e. Giuseppe Francesco Borri [1627-1695]) apud Tackium (Johann Tackius [1617-1675]) Phasis p. 160 uti Macrocosmi Compendium homo existimatur, ita homo sive humanus mundus in se quoque habet proprium compendium in vultu et imago nostri corporis est facies'. The illustration shows the facial nerves supposed to correspond with those of other parts of the body. XI A similar volume, mainly in Latin, but with some entries in Italian (318 ll.). There are long extracts and notes on the works of Galen and Hippocrates. A marginal note on the 6th leaf is dated Naples 1714: another entry on 'Aqua Tofana' is dated 1715 apparently at Naples.

Pasted down as end-papers at the beginning of Vol. IV is a small folio sheet containing an engraving of 'Triangulus australis' above a decorated wreath, which includes a small meallion-portrait of Werner XVII Comes de Hapsburgo. It is numbered 132, and is apparently extracted from an unidentified volume of engravings. The identification of the author of these MSS. is based on two entries. The first is in Vol. III is a marginal note on the verso of the 12th leaf of the entry of the 'Medicina mentis' of Tschirnhausen noted above. It begins: 'Mihi Jos. Herm. M[armi]. The expansion of 'Herm' into an Italian Christian name seems doubtful, but it could be 'Hermannus' or 'Herminius' or even 'Hermes' or 'Hermete'. The second entry is however decisive. It is found also in a marginal note on the eating of cucumbers in the summer, in connexion with the onset of bile after drinking in hot weather as observed by Galen. This is definitely signed 'I. H. Marmi'. Produced in Naples?

Correspondence and papers of the statesman Henry Dundas both general and in his capacity as Commissioner (later President) of the Board of Control, 1783-1811.