The
Builders
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The
Wandle River shown in the 18th century.
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The
reason for the particular siting of the telescope is unknown,
but certainly the industrial build up along the River Wandle,
a tributary of the Thames, would have made the building of
the 'scope much easier. Elements of the scope, fabricated
elsewhere, could easily have been brought down-river along
the River Wandle.
The
docks of Wandsworth, just a mile or two north, would have
made the transportation of, say, the telescope tube, very
easy. London Town had ample rail links to many of England's
large industrial towns. Certainly, the Wandsworth Common,
was an excellent choice at the time.
In
the words of The Illustrated London News, "In
the retired study of a country clergyman, the idea of this
instrument struck him, and having made in his own peculiar
way his calculations, the result was a fixed determination
to carry them out".
Mr
William Gravatt
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Mr
William Gravatt was a Fellow of the Royal Society and assistant
to Brunel, River Thames tunneller and shipbuilder. He was
involved with many building projects, one of which is the
present Great Bow Bridge, completed in 1840. He was invited
to help on Craig's telescope. It took two years in its construction
from plans to finished telescope.
Messrs.
Rennie
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Messrs.
Rennie was one of the foremost heavy-engineering firms of
the 19th century, were engaged to build parts of the telescope.
Chance
Brothers
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Britain
had lagged behind the rest of Europe in the production of
glass due to the prohibitive window tax against which astronomers
campaigned to no avail, and which was not repealed until 1851,
the year before Craig built his monster refractor.
Chance
& Hunt Ltd has always considered its foundation year to
be 1835, the year in which Chance and Hartleys of Smethwick,
very soon to become the famous firm of Chance Brothers and
Company, glassmakers was formed. Products manufactured included
saltcake, Hydrochloric Acid and Soda Ash.
The
Chance Brothers of Smethwick were the British Commonwealth
leading optical-instrument firm. In 1888 the chance brothers
went on to cast the 28-inch object lens of the (at the time)
Royal Greenwich Observatory. The lens was in fact cast out
of two components, one of flint and the other of plate glass.
Making the flint-glass blanks was the responsibility of Mr
Chance of Birmingham. While the plate-glass disk was cast
by the Thames Plate Glass Company.
Mr
Thomas Slater
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 Mr
Thomas Slater of Somers Place, Euston Square in London was
chosen to figure the two lens for the 'scope, although his
figuring was not perfect, the lens being slightly undercorrected.
When using the telescope it was necessary to cover the central
part of the lens to improve its performance.
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