Storer, William (McKechnie Section 1)

It is not certain that William Storer was an artist at all, as no details of how to put pen or scissors to paper are given in his patent for the ‘Accurate Delineator’ used for ‘drawing the human face’, which he took out on 4 March 1778 and which was ratified on 29 June of that year. The text of this Patent, No. 1183, is given below and can be compared with the patent taken out by Mrs Harrington (q.v.).

It would be interesting to know how many artists did in fact use the complex apparatus of lenses, speculae, and mirrors described by Storer. No doubt the instruments themselves were of simpler construction than the wording of the patent suggests. One hopes, nevertheless, for the sake of its would-be users, that the mechanism was sold already assembled.

We do not know whether the patent (valid initially for fourteen years) was renewed. It seems unlikely that the ‘Accurate Delineator’ was the same as the ‘Patent Delineator’ (see Mrs Bristow and J. H. Millington in this Section), unless Storer’s patent was renewed by the patentee of the latter apparatus.

A.D. 1778 NO. 1183

Optical Instrument, called ‘the Accurate Delineator’.

STORER’S SPECIFICATION

TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM STORER, of Lisle Street, Leicester Fields, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman, send greeting.

WHEREAS I, the said William Storer, did, by my Petition, humbly represent unto His present most Excellent Majesty King George the Third that I had. with much labour and expencc, by a new art or science, invented ‘AN OPTICAL INSTRUMENT, CALLED AN ACCURATE DELINEATOR, WHICH, AMONGST ITS MANY PERFECTIONS, INTIRELY OBVIATES THE DEFECTS OF THE CAMERA OBSCURA, AS IT MAY NOT ONLY BE USED WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF THE SUN IN THE DAY TIME, BUT ALSO EQUALLY OF USE BY CANDLE LIGHT, FOR DRAWING THE HUMAN FACE, INSIDE OF ROOMS, BUILDINGS, PERSPECTIVES, LANDSCAPES, FOLIAGE AND FIBRES OF TREES AND FLOWERS, IT EXACTLY REPRESENTING THE SAME, LARGE OR SMALL, WITH THE TRUE OUTLINES, LIGHTS, SHADES, AND COLOURS,’ all which effects were new and discovered by me, and which I apprehend would be of great publick utility, and in regard I was the first and true inventor and the same had not been practised or used by any other person or persons to my knowledge and belief, I therefore most humbly prayed His said Majesty to grant unto me, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His Letters Patent for the term of fourteen years, for the sole benefit and advantage of the said Invention; His said Majesty, being therefore willing to give encouragement to all arts and inventions that may be for the publick good, did, by His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at Westminster, the Fourth day of March, in the eighteenth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said William Storer, my executors, administrators and assigns, His special licence, full power and authority, that I, the said William Storer, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should and might lawfully make, use, exercise, and vend my said Invention within that part of Great Britain called England, the Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, in such manner as to me, my executors, administrators and assigns, should seem meet, for and during and unto the full end and term of fourteen years from the date of the said recited Letters Patent; in which said Letters Patent is contained a provisoe obliging me, the said William Storer, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty’s High Court of Chancery within four calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, otherwise the said Letters Patent, and all powers and priviledges thereby granted, should cease, determine, and become void, as in and by the said Letters Patent (reference being thereunto had) may more fully and at large appear.

NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said William Storer, in pursuance of the said provisoe, do hereby describe my said Invention in manner following (that is to say):-

The accurate delineator may be made of various forms, and the effects above mentioned arise from a newly-invented application of lenses, mirrors, speculums, prisms, or mediums of lenses of glass, or any composition containing reflecting or refracting powers. The rays from the object are at first received on or conveyed to a mirror or speculum placed at a proper angle in the inside of a tube or box by one or more convex lens or medium of lenses before the mirror or speculum. In cases where the object is conveyed thro’ a lens or medium of lenses on the mirror or speculum, one or more convex lenses or medium of lenses must be applied to correct and illuminate the rays, and to receive from the mirror or speculum the rays from the objects conveyed thereon through the first-mentioned lens or medium of lenses: but in cases where the rays from the objects are received in the first place on the mirror or speculum, a convex lens or medium of lenses must be placed fixed or moveable next after the mirror or speculum, to collect the rays from the mirror or speculum; and at a proper distance from the first lens or medium of lenses must be applied one or more convex lens or medium of lenses to correct and illuminate the rays from the first lens or medium of lenses, by which means all rays that are spherically refracted through the first medium will be made parallel, and consequently all objects are accurately represented and all parts thereof equally illuminated on the lens or medium lenses so receiving and correcting the rays of the objects received from the mirror or speculum, or first lens or medium of lenses, and gives the most lively and exact representation of the objects, either by the light of the sun, moon, or any other light. In all cases the size of the aperture or medium through which the rays first pass must govern the size and powers of the correcting lens or medium, both contrary to the principals of the camera obscura. A prism, mirror, or speculum placed at a proper angle to reflect the image on the first lens or medium of lenses, mirror, or speculum, the objects will be represented in their true shape, figure, and form; and a collecting or correcting lens or lenses, or medium of lenses, to collect or correct the rays from the images presented by a reflecting microscope, magick lanthorn, camera obscura, or other instrument of the like nature, instantly forms the accurate delineator, the principals of the accurate delineator being not so much in the form or figure of the instrument, as to collect and correct and illuminate the faint and imperfect rays from the objects received thro’ these instruments.

In witness whereof, I, the said William Storer, have hereunto set my hand and seal, the Twenty-ninth day of June, in the eighteenth year of the reign of His said Majesty King George the Third, and in the year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight.

WILLIAM STORER

Sealed and delivered (being first duly

stampt) in the presence of

JAMES P. ATKINSON,

Saint Margaret Street, Westminster.

GEO. DANIELL.

AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the same twenty-ninth day of June, in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid William Storer came before our said Lord and King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form above written. And also Specification aforesaid was stampt according to the tenor of the Statute made in the sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen William and Mary of England, and so forth.

Inrolled the same day and year last above mentioned.