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Spina Frontalis, photo with permission of Safilo s.p.a. |
In 1490 Jerome Savonarola wrote about hooking spectacles to a cap. This is early evidence for spectacles being considered as an accessory to clothing...perhaps the first 'eyewear'.
Around 1650 the Spina Frontalis appears to have been introduced and may perhaps be considered a precursor of sides. It included a single centrally placed ‘arm’ for positioning over the crown of the head, perhaps under a bonnet. Eighteenth century silver examples include this arm in the exact same form of one or more spectacle sides joined end to end.
It is currently believed that no spectacles had sides until the second quarter of the eighteenth century, from which point spectacles with 'temples' rapidly became the norm.
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| The Womleighton carving photographed by us in 2005 |
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| 1950s photograph | |
However, latest research by the BOA Museum suggests that sides may have existed before the traditionally accepted date...indeed possibly as early as the 1680s.
It all depends on how you interpret a figurative sculpture of a man wearing spectacles (apparently with sides!) from the carved oak screen now to be found at St Peter's Church, Wormleighton, on the Warwickshire/Oxfordshire border.
The earliest parts of the church date from 1150 but when staff of the BOA Museum first paid attention to this carving back in the 1950s the screen was thought to have been taken from the Spencer Mansion in the village of Wormleighton, built in the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547) which would make it early 16th century, some two hundred years before sides were believed to have been invented. It seemed an unlikely scenario. For various reasons we now think that the screen was originally in Southam Parish Church but was removed for safe-keeping during the Civil War. After the war the screen was included for a short period in the decorative scheme of the Star Chamber in the Manor House. We think that the be-spectacled man is a later addition to this screen, added circa 1685 when the screen was reassembled at Wormleighton Church and reduced in size. This seems much more credible and would still make it the earliest representation of spectacle sides.
The 'sides' appear to pass at a rigid right angle from the lugs of the spectacle front. Unfortunately their terminals are concealed by the flowing locks of hair. We may never be sure if this is what we think it might be. The carving's Tudor-style hat is probably a red herring. One assumes that the artist had added spectacles with sides anachronistically, but the possibility of folk memory playing some part cannot be dismissed altogether. At least the available evidence entitles us to suggest, cautiously, that the first development of spectacle sides is possibly English and possibly from the last quarter of the seventeenth century.
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Cords
In the seventeenth century the Spanish introduced cords that looped round the ears and helped to keep spectacles in place. This method of securing them was also the one favoured by the Chinese at approximately the same time and could be an alternative interpretation of the Wormleighton carving.
In the 20th century cords have been used to tie spectacles onto babies and even animals. Adults have used then when wearing spectacles under helmets.
A portrait of Francesco Caetani, Duke of Sermoneta (1594-1683) dating from circa 1660-1662, shows him wearing spectacles with large round lenticular lenses, a notably high bridge and thin line emanating from the mid point of the left rim, disappearing into the folds of his hair. Could this Viceroy of Sicily, Governor of Milan and noted connoisseur of flowers also be the first known wearer of spectacles with sides? Unfortunately the painting is inconclusive. The line is thinner than that outlining the bridge and could be just a cord, but then where is the returning part of the earloop?
Molyneux's Wire Sides
Family papers of the Molyneux family in Ireland contain a special study on the eyes of soldiers compiled by Sir Thomas Molyneux, Physician General to the Army in Ireland. The document appears to describe a spectacle frame for officers, fabricated from gilded brass wire wound round the lenses, bent sixfold to form a brige and continued to form sides and extended with hook bends around the ears. We do not know if any of these frames were ever made for normal use but this could represent the 'invention' of sides in 1725. Certainly, however, the type of sides that definitely did emerge in the next ten years or so were of a totally different type.
Molyneux's wire was presumably quite flexible and almost like a cord loop. The precise date of the invention of rigid sides is unknown. Some sort of loosely fitted rod may have been employed in Italy circa 1700 and this is another possible explanation of the Caetani painting.
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The Kirkliston Gravestone
A rather worn Scottish gravestone erected to the memory of one Margaret Shield at Kirkliston near Edinburgh, dated 3 July 1727 may illustrate the first appearance of sides on a macabre pair of skulls indicating the decay of death.
The sides, if that is what they are, loop round in an S-shape and terminate in a large round hollow. This may be a representation of ring ends (for which see below).
Alternatively the carving may show nothing more than straps or cords, but there is an uncanny closeness of date to when we believe spectacle sides were actually invented though nobody would have expected to find their early appearance in Scotland. The Scottish 'Enlightenment' had scarcely got going at this date; even Edinburgh itself was still something of a backwater. We should remember, of course, that memorial headstones can sometimes be erected a long time, even several years, after the date of death.
Edward Scarlett
Edward Scarlett may not have been the inventor of modern spectacle sides but he does seem to have been the first to advertise them and so the earliest type is known as the 'Scarlett-type'. This type is distinctive for its spiral terminals on the end of relatively short temple pieces and only one genuine early example of known whereabouts survives in the public domain - in the BOA Museum.
They were found, almost by accident, during a clear-out in the museum basement at Knaresbrough Place in 1990. Fortunately Curator Hugh Orr had sufficient expertise to recognise them for what they were and they have since been authenticated by several international experts. No evidence for the maker of this actual pair has been found, but only Scarlett seems to have promoted the type. Contrary to some accounts he neither claimed to have invented these spectacles, nor did he patent them.
The trade card of Edward Scarlett, Optician to His Majesty George II, dated no later than 1730, bears the earliest verifiable illustration of sides, being short, straight and with spiral ends. Large ring ends quickly superseded these. The spirals or rings were to provide a large surface area to rest on the side of the head (the temples) rather than overlie (still, less hook round) the ear.
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| Detail from Portrait of Robert Harris showing unencumbered ring ends | Detail from Portrait of Messenger Monsey | Ring-end spectacles, 2nd half 18th century, with short straight sides, bent by the wearer in a rudimentary attempt at frame fitting! |
Ring Ends
Ring ends were the second type of side terminal after the apparently short-lived spiral design. Large ring ends essentially indicate an 18th century pair of spectacles and they got smaller as the century progressed.
It is often stated that the ring ends were for the insertion of a ribbon. Whilst this was clearly one possible course of action it is also clear that sometimes the end was covered by leather or material thereby spreading the load more evenly, softening the grip which could be quite firm and perhaps interfering less with the curls and folds of the wigs with which they were often worn. A portrait of Robert Harris in the BOA Museum demonstrates that the rings could equally be left unadorned and a superb portrait of Messenger Monsey from 1764 in the Museum of the Royal College of Physicians reveals another utilisation by which the index finger could be inserted through the ring as a method of holding the spectacles when not in use.
Detail from Portrait of Messenger Monsey copyright the Royal College of Physicians of London
Double-hinged sides
Once the concept had been established different forms of side were developed quickly: James Ayscough advertised his ‘double-jointed’ sides ‘entirely of a new contrivance’ in 1752. They were ‘so contrived as to press neither upon the Nose nor the Temples’. Sides of this nature became the most popular for oriental spectacles, possibly at around the same time, but it is pure speculation to suggest a direct connection.
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The left-hand image shows a pair of spectacles with real tortoiseshell front but silver Ayscough-type sides, hallmarked to 1792. By this time the terminal has changed into an elegant oval or pear-shaped loop. Note how the inscription on the side would actually have been upside down when the spectacles were being worn!
Turnpin sides were another form of double-jointed sides but folding in a different plane. The added length they gave the sides permitted them to reach right round the head and in rare cases to actually join together, forming a complete headband. That is almost the case in the right-hand image above.
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Sliding sides were another form of extension. We have no information on where and when they first appeared but hallmark analysis of surviving silver spectacles has brought their earliest appearance forward to 1806.
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Curl sides may have been demonstrated at the Great Exhibition in 1851; they were certainly advertised in the R&J Beck trade catalogue by 1866. The pair illustrated here dates from circa 1890. Curl sides were almost a return to the idea of the thread loop and this became even more the case as the curled wire was developed so that gradually it became ever more flexible, going through cable curl, comfort cable curl and super comfort cable curl incarnations. They were popular not with the old so much as with children and models for infants were designed.
Spring joints appear first in the patent of F.B. Anderson 1854, ‘Constructing the Joints of Spectacles and Adapting Spiral Springs thereto’. High joints were (re)invented and patented by McLeod in 1928.
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Dudley Adams
Mention should also be made of Dudley Adams (1762-1830) of Fleet Street, who in 1797 patented his ‘Certain Spectacles upon an Entire New principle’. These comprised two lens rims that slid along a brow bar headband in a manner not unlike some later pupillary distance measures. They were intended for ‘relieving the temples and nose from any kind of pressure whatsoever when in use, and also that the spectacle eyes may be varied or moved to any direction’. Adams submitted more than a dozen different patterns of side to the patent office. Whilst these had never before been patented, most of them were already in use and can scarcely be considered new inventions attributable to this individual. We may note, however, his use of the actual word 'sides'.
Uncannily, the spectacles described above appeared to make a comeback at Optrafair 2001. In the late 1990s Dr Max Fairclough an ex United States Air Force ‘ophthalmic specialist’ created a product ‘to make nose and ear support obsolete’. The spectacle front, marketed by his company Abdel Eyewear, was suspended from a brow bar and consequently featured no bridge. This appears to be an ultra modern variation on an eighteenth century theme.
The Museum is particularly keen to hear of further evidence for the early existence of sides.