Joseph Jackson Lister
Joseph Jackson Lister | |
---|---|
Born | 11 January 1786 City of London, England |
Died | 24 October 1869 (aged 83) |
Nationality | British |
Known for | Development of the optical microscope |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Opticist and physicist |
Joseph Jackson Lister
Life
In 1705, Thomas Lister, a farmer and maltster, of
Joseph's youngest son, christened John, was born in 1737. He was apprenticed to a watchmaker, Isaac Rogers, in 1752, and followed that trade on his own account in Bell Alley, Lombard Street from 1759 to 1766. He then took over his father's tobacco business, but gave it up in 1769 in favour of his father-in-law Stephen Jackson's business as a wine-merchant in Lothbury.
John Lister was made a
Adulthood
On leaving school in 1800, Joseph Jackson was apprenticed to his father's wine business in Lothbury, which was becoming a thriving and prosperous concern, and in 1804, at the age of 18 he was made a partner.
During a visit to the Quaker Ackworth School near Pontefract in 1814, he met Isabella Harris, then aged 22, the daughter of the school superintendent, also called Isabella, a widow with six children. Isabella junior taught reading and writing to the girls of the school for five years, leaving in 1818 to marry Joseph Jackson Lister. She was then 26, and he was 32. After their marriage, they lived for three years at Tokenhouse Yard, where his wine business was carried on, then for four years at Stoke Newington. In 1821 Lister invested in a trading ship commanded by his brother-in-law.
They then bought Upton House in 1825, a spacious old
.Upton was then a country hamlet to the east of London, close to
Family
Their children included Mary, 1820–94, who married Rickman Godlee, a barrister of the
Microscopy
J. J. Lister was deeply interested in natural history, and realized that the
The stand was made by an employee of Tulley, James Smith, and is preserved in the
He had a large circle of scientific contacts, including
Old age
Lister was deeply affected by the premature death of his son John in 1846, and thereafter appeared to have given up his optical investigations. Their youngest, and for a long while only daughter left at home had married in 1858, and for six years Joseph and Isabella had lived alone at Upton. Their son William Henry died in 1859 after a long illness on a ship bound for Australia. His wife Isabella, who had long been in poor health, died in September 1864, aged 72. Joseph's remaining five years were lonely, although three of the children lived nearby with many grandchildren, and he observed that "since his own great loss his friends and contemporaries seemed falling like autumn leaves". His chief pleasure during his final years was to receive weekly letters from Joseph in Edinburgh, and to watch his son's advance and the progress of his discoveries.
He died aged 83 in October 1869 at home at Upton House, and was buried along with Isabella his wife, in the Friends' Burial Ground, Stoke Newington, Middlesex.
Bibliography
- Lister, Joseph Jackson; Hodgkin, T. (1827). "Notice of Some Microscopic Observations of the Blood and Animal Tissues". Philosophical Magazine. 2: 130–138.
- Lister, Joseph Jackson (1830). "On the Improvement of Achromatic Compound Microscopes". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 120: 187–200.
- Lister, Joseph Jackson (1834). "Some Observations on the Structure and Functions of Tubular and Cellular Polypi, and of Ascidiae". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 124: 365–388.
- Lister, Joseph Jackson (1913). "On the Limit to Defining-power, in Vision With the Unassisted Eye, the Telescope, and the Microscope". Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society. 33: 34–35.
References
- ISBN 978-1-55581-529-5. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
- ^ Microscope-Antiques.com (2016). "History of achromatic microscope lenses". Microscope-Antiques.com. Retrieved 26 September 2022.
- ^ Wilson, Martin (13 April 2021). "How history shaped modern optical microscopes, Part Two: Corrected lenses and objectives". Bitesize Bio. Retrieved 26 September 2022.
- ^ Lister, Joseph Lister (1893). Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney (eds.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 33. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. p. 347.