A pair of Newton and Son ‘New & Improved’ 15 inch globes

Each of these globes is set into a walnut stand with burr walnut veneers to the frieze and a solid turned and gadrooned walnut bluster support.  This is raised on three acanthus carved C-curve legs centred on compass roses (replaced).  The sharply carved lion’s paw feet enclose the original brass castors.  The terrestrial globe label reads ‘Newton’s new and improved terrestrial globe accurately delineated from the observations of the most esteemed Navigators and Travellers to the Present Time, manufactured by Newton and Son.  No. 66, Chancery Lane – 3 Fleet Street, Temple Bar, London, Published Febry Ist 1864’.  The celestial globe label reads: ‘Newton’s New and Improved Celestial Globe on which all the Stars are taken from the elaborate and most approved Catalogue of Piazzi, the Nebulas from Bode and the double stars and those with proper motions from South.  The Right Ascensions & Declinations of the whole having been recalculated and accurately laid down for the year 1851.  By Mr. W. Newton. Manufactured by Newton & Son, Chancery Lane, London, Published, Ist March, 1860.  The horizon rings are also signed ‘Newton & Son No. 66, Chancery Lane and 3 Fleet Street, Temple Bar, London’.  English, dated 1860 and 1864. 

Provenance: Alexander Scrimgeour, Highgate and subsequently Wispers House

Ruth Scrimgeour, and thence by descent. 

In the 1860s these globes were owned by Alexander Scrimgeour, a stockbroker, who lived with his seven children lived at Woodside, Highgate.  He bought the Stedham Estate in 1875 and had Wispers House built in the mock Tudor style, as his main residence, by Richard Norman Shaw.  Woolhouse Farm on the estate lay directly below Wispers and in 1897, Mr Scrimgeour gifted this to his daughter Ruth, with the globes and other antiques.  Ruth Scrimgeour kept a schoolroom in her farm until the 1930s, and established a pony and horse-breeding establishment and children’s riding school on her marshland on Selsey Bill.  

The Newton family are ranked among the leading English globe makers.  John Newton (1759-1844) trained under Thomas Bateman before founding his own company in 1780.  In the early 1800s John, and his second son William (1786-1861), relocated to 97 Chancery Lane and traded under the name J & W Newton.  From 1831 to 1841 another partner was added, civil engineer Miles Berry, and the company became Newton, Son and Berry.  After 1841 ownership passed to the eldest son William Edward Newton (1818-1879).  It was customary to update globes with the latest discoveries and stars by applying new papers as soon as they were published, hence the varying dates on these globes.