Cambridge collectors: The Steward Collection
Our theme of Cambridge collectors, accompanying the current exhibition ‘Shelf Lives: Four Centuries of Collectors and their Books’, continues with a post by Dawn Moutrey of the Whipple Library on the Steward Collection, which came to the library in the 1970s when the Whipple Museum purchased a number of scientific instruments from the Steward family.
‘The J.H. Steward company was established in London in 1852 and became J.H. Steward Ltd. in 1913. It produced instruments for optical measuring, observation, military use, drawing and surveying. The 100-odd books we have in this collection cover physics, optics, scientific instruments, astronomy, lubrication, meteorology and gemmology (James Henry Steward, who established the company, was also a jeweller).’