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SPECTALK

In the news:

The Times of India 17th June 2011 - Further news on Mahatma Gandhi's spectacles

Following the news that Mahatma Gandhi's iconic spectacles were to be sold I have now learnt that they have been stolen!

Follow this link to read more.

BBC News 5th March 2009

Mahatma Gandhi's iconic spectacles, which he once said gave him "the vision to free India", are to be sold at an auction in New York. 

A pair of the Indian independence leader's sandals and his pocket watch also form part of the sale next month. 

Auctioneers have put an estimate of £30,000 ($42,000) on the items but expect the winning bid to be higher. 

Because Gandhi had so few possessions, the sale is expected to attract huge attention from across the world. 

Gandhi presented the spectacles to Indian army Colonel H A Shiri Diwan Nawabin in the 1930s, after he had asked the great leader for inspiration. 

"Gandhi gave him the glasses and said: 'These gave me the vision to free India'," said Michelle Halpern, from Antiquorum Auctioneers in New York which will stage the sale on 4-5 March. 

Dollond & Aitchison 30th January 2009

The brand name Dollond & Aitchison will disapear from the high street due to a merger with Boots Opticians. The Dollond & Aitchison name has been on britains high streets for more than 250 years. The optician chain has agreed  to merge with rival Boots Opticians.

History of Spectacles

History began to record the use of spectacles towards to the end oft the 13th century. The first medical reference is by Bernard Gordon, Professor of Montpellier (1305). He recommends a lotion of such potency "that it will enable those whose sight is weak from old age to read without glasses." Guy de Chauliac (1353) also recommends collyria (an ophthalmic lotion), but say that when such lotions do not help, the patient should turn to glasses. Incidentally, collyria were time-honoured means for strengthening the sight. Ali ben Isa has laid down explicitly that they who do not see in the near, "a condition which mainly affects old people" (Presbyopia) should use styptic medicines; whilst those who see well for near sight but not in the distance (Myopia), require medicines which give moist nutrition and bring the moist principle to the eye. 

Attempts to trace the invention of glasses to a particular person have had little success. Fraciscus Redi, a distinguished and learned Professor of Medicine in Pisa, in letters to a friend in 1676, writes that he has a manuscript dated 1299, in the preface of which a reference is made to the recently invented glasses; " I find myself so oppressed by the years that I no longer have the strength to read or write without the glasses known as spectacles, lately invented for the comfort of the old souls who have become weak-sighted." Redi further quotes from a sermon (1305) by Fra Giordano da Rivalto: " It is not yet twenty years that the art of making glasses was invented; this enables good sight and is one of the best as well as the most useful of arts that the world possess." Fra Giordano resided together with Fra Alessandro da Spina in the monastery of S. Catherina at Pisa, and Redi extracted from the manuscript chronicle of the monastery two references to Spina. One is an obituary notice, Spina having died in 1313, two years after Fra Giordano: "Brother Alexander da Spina, a modest and good man, had the capacity to make things he had seen or of which he had heard. He made glasses and freely taught the art to others. Glasses had previously been made by someone else who, however, would not say anything about them." Another reference in that chronicle speaks in the same tone and to the same effect, emphasizing that in contrast to the secretiveness of the original inventor, da Spina freely communicated the secret of the art he had copied. 

Lorgnettes & Folding Eyeglasses

A lorgnette is a spectacle front on the end of a handle. Early lorgnettes had quite short handles. Indeed the pre-history of the lorgnette and spectacles overlaps since early spectacles, though they had no handles, were often hand-held at the edge to support them in place.

Did you know? The French used the word 'lorgnette' as early as the 17th century to describe a spyglass (small telescope). Some spyglasses had handles attached to them but the usage is nonetheless liable to cause confusion. The French word for what we call a lorgnette is actually face-a-main.

The lorgnette is believed to have been invented circa 1770 by George Adams I (1709-1772) and subsequently illustrated in his son's Essay on Vision (1789 and 1792) where it was described as 'a kind of substitute for spectacles...both eyes are used at once, without any effort'.  Although the first ones had round rims and were thus a bit chunky it is still fair to claim that the emphasis was on a practical, functional design. Most of these lorgnettes have a horn or tortoiseshell handle that often doubles as a case to fold into. The handle was rarely any longer than the width of the spectacle front and fitted neatly in the hand, all the more neatly once oval lenses became popular circa 1800. Some of these lorgnettes have metal fronts. The Adams-type lorgnette continued in popularity until at least 1825.

The fashion for even shorter-handled lorgnettes coincides with the development of spring-loaded fronts. As the nineteenth century progressed folding eyeglasses (and later pince-nez) were increasingly adopted in place of spectacles by both sexes as a sort of compromise solution since it seems that women could get away with being seen to wear them and men preferred them rather than risk the negative associations should they be seen to flourish scissor spectacles in the hand - the practice of the French middle classes who supported the Revolution

Excerpt from The College of Optometrists web site

RE-CYCLE Your old specs

What can I do with them?
  • Ask your optician if they collect old spectacles.  Many do - they are donated to charities who send them to developing countries.