Protractor Signed by Cox

This semicircular brass protractor is graduated to half-degrees. It is marked by tens from 10° to 170° in both directions, from left to right and from right to left. A brass rectangle with a curved notch has been soldered on at the origin point. The rectangle contains a small hole for locating the vertex of the angle being measured. The base of the protractor bears the maker's mark: W. C. Cox, Devonport. The letters DB are scratched near the maker's mark.

William Charles Cox, a British instrument maker who worked in Plymouth and Devonport, had his shop in Devonport from 1830 to 1851. He presumably made this protractor during that period. The Smithsonian purchased this instrument in 1959 from the estate of Henry Russell Wray via an auction conducted by Maggs Bros. Ltd. of London.

Reference: Gloria Clifton, Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers 1550-1851 (London: National Maritime Museum, 1995), 69–70.

Reference:

Sotheby & Company, Catalogue of a Collection of Scientific Instruments, the Property of the Late Henry Russel Wray, London, 1959 (a copy of the catalogue is in the accession file).

Currently not on view