George III: a royal passion for science

When people studied mechanics in the 18th century they were taught about motion, forces and mechanical devices. There were two important aspects to this: one was the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, and the other was for practical purposes.

In a rapidly expanding city, it was important to know why specific combinations of pulleys raised heavy weights more efficiently than other combinations, or why certain diameters of carriage wheel were more efficient for transporting a cart along a particular surface and incline.

In London, similarly to other European cities in this period, buildings needed to be constructed, cargo raised from ships, and loads transported along roads and lanes of varying condition. The more efficient these processes were, the more that could be achieved and therefore the more successful (and very often profitable) the endeavours were.

The philosophical table is the centrepiece of the mechanics apparatus provided to the King by George Adams (1709–72), a successful instrument maker based on Fleet Street. Adams wrote a manuscript of lessons and demonstrations to accompany it, which is dated 1762. He drew heavily on the work of the natural philosophy lecturers Richard Helsham (1683–1738) in Dublin, Abbé Nollet (1700–70) in France, and John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683–1744) in London to do so.

Described by Adams as the ‘great table’, it was designed to enable many different demonstrations. Pendulums and devices to demonstrate motion could be attached to the pillars at each end of the table and the centre was used for demonstrations of the inclined horseway and model carriage.

The first bridge at Westminster was under construction in the late 1730s. The machine that was used to drive the piles, known as a pile driver, was designed by the watchmaker James Vauloué in 1737. He was awarded the Royal Society’s Copley Medal for his design. It featured a capstan that was powered by three horses that raised a large weight to the top of the shaft. The weight was released to strike the top of the piles five times in two minutes, which drove a firwood pile fourteen feet into the river bed in an hour.

The maker of this model is unknown, but it was used by Stephen Demainbray (1710–82) in his lectures concerning compound engines. The construction of the bridge would have been a familiar sight to Londoners in this period, so there was much interest in it. It was after all only the second bridge to be built over the Thames in central London, after London Bridge. Many pile driver models were made, but this one became part of the royal collection. Demainbray eventually went to work at King George III’s observatory at Kew, where his collection of instruments and demonstration equipment became subsumed into the King’s own collection.

The son of George Adams, known as George Adams the Younger (1750–95), also made instruments for demonstration that became part of the King’s collection. These two apparatus were used to demonstrate the mechanical powers and were made in the late 1770s. One shows the pulleys and levers. The other shows the inclined plane, the wedge and endless screw. These were seen as the fundamental mechanical devices on which all others were based. In a city that was expanding at a considerable rate with tonnes of cargo coming into the docks, Londoners were extremely interested in devices that enabled great weights to be lifted and transported.

Lent by King’s College London

Astronomy became part of the natural philosophy curriculum, as it was considered to be an essential branch of knowledge. The seventh planet, Uranus, was not discovered until 1781, meaning that the known planets were still those that had been known since antiquity (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). The stars had been catalogued with greater accuracy, comets had been observed and recorded, and natural philosophers were trying to use observations to answer larger questions such as the size of the solar system.

Many lecturers in natural philosophy used an orrery to demonstrate the motion of the planets and their moons and to show how to make certain calculations such as the rising and setting of the Sun and Moon on different dates throughout the year and to explain how an eclipse of the Sun or Moon occurs.

This orrery was already part of the royal collection when George III became King. Its original maker is unknown, but it was expanded in 1733 by Thomas Wright (active 1718–47), an instrument maker based on Fleet Street. The orrery was at one time located in Kensington Palace and was relocated to Kew when the King’s observatory was completed. Turning the handle of the orrery demonstrates the revolutions of the planets that were known at the time—Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn—and the motion of the Moon.

King George III’s collection as a whole and the selection of objects highlighted above shows us not only how deep his interest in natural philosophy genuinely was, but also gives us a chance to consider a set of instruments that may not have survived as a unit had they not belonged to the King. Stephen Demainbray’s demonstration equipment, made mostly in wood, would have been typical of the kind of kit owned by a travelling lecturer in the 18th century, but has been preserved because it became part of the King’s own collection.

Teaching using instruments was an accepted practice that survived in schools and colleges until at least the mid-20th century and while most learning now takes place using computer devices and textbooks, some specialist learning such as navigation at sea still requires its students to learn using instruments in addition to computer systems.