Length: 14.5cm (5.7in)
Silvered bronze. Modelled as an Army officer lying prone and siting a Barr & Stroud rangefinder. The plinth inscribed in Dutch ‘De Barr & Stroud / Afstandmeter’. Maker’s mark of the art founders Elkington & Co., Birmingham.
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Professors Archibald Barr and William Stroud played a leading role in the development of modern optics, including rangefinders, for the Royal Navy and the War Office. In 1891 they were approached by the Admiralty to submit a design for a short-base rangefinder for trial. At the time Barr held the post of Regius Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Glasgow, while Stroud was employed in the Physics department at the University of Leeds. By 1904, 100 men were working for the company in a new purpose-built factory in Anniesland, Glasgow. Shortly thereafter, in 1909, Stroud resigned his chair at University of Leeds and moved to Glasgow to work for the company full-time. Barr, in spite of a distinguished teaching career at Glasgow University, followed his example in 1913. Together they formed Barr & Stroud Ltd. that year.
A collection of Barr & Stroud rangefinders