Over one hundred years ago these slides were prepared by
Alfred Allen - 1833-1898. Allen was a founder member of The
Postal Microscopical Society (UK) formed in 1873 as The
Postal Micro-Cabinet Club, he was then living in Felstead, a
small village (1931 census population 1,845) in the County of
Essex, south east England.
I have 24 slides in my cabinet labelled 'Felstead' some with
Essex in addition, all paper covered. Another, a section of
hazel cut Dec. 31st 1891, is not paper covered. The bottom
label has been cut; presumably it is an old Felstead label
and by that time he had moved to the town of Bath. This
latter slide has its hazel section stained red which is still
a good colour more than 100 years on, stain unknown.
Most of the slides would have been prepared for their
entertainment value, as a pastime, rather than for research,
hence their paper covering to make them look as attractive as
possible. This must have been quite popular to make it worth
the printers while to produce them in different patterns and
colours. I have slides by other preparers in a number of
different patterns and colours to those shown here.
The slides were reproduced here by scanning which seems to
have worked reasonably well with the exception of the black
one which has a rather faint pattern in gold. I doubt if
anybody will be looking at my preparations in 100 years time.
I mostly make fluid mounts which cannot be guaranteed to last
long.
Reference; A Century of Postal Microscopy by
R.H.Sessions. Microscopy, 32, 225-241.
London 1973 published by the Quekett Microscopical Club.
Comments to the author William
Ells welcomed.