The Museum of the History of Science
Broad Street
Oxford OX1 3AZ
 |
| Fragments of Babbage's First Difference Engine [incorrectly assembled] |
Provenance and Related Material
Harry Wilmot Buxton (1843-1911), friend of Charles Babbage
Museum of the History of Science,
Old Ashmolean Building, Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3AZ.
Harry Wilmot Buxton Collection
The museum has a fragment of the Difference Engine presumably that one given to Buxton by Babbage, made from the leftover parts of the Difference Engine which he purchased from the Government in 1843. This fragment is on display on the 1st floor. It has been incorrectly assembled.
Identifiable Parts included in assembly:-
2 Framing Plates, Carrying Lever, Framing Plate Spacers or Column Sockets, 4 x Upper Calculating Wheels, 3 x Lower Calculating Wheels, 1 x Figure Wheel, 3 x Carrying Detent Levers, 2 x Bolting Prevention Levers, 1 x Carrying Detent, 2 x Bolting Arms, 2 x Bolts (assembled), parts for a Bolt (disassembled) and 3 springs for same, 1 x Snail Wheel attached to a Lower Calculating Wheel, 4 x Roller Levers (3 of which double ended), 2 x Figure Wheel Indicator Arms, 2 x Outer Inclined Planes, Wheel with triangular teeth and crown pin teeth, Some drum-like pieces approx 2½ inches diam.
MSS Buxton Manuscripts
collected by Harry Wilmot Buxton (c.1818-1880), lawyer. Chiefly papers of Charles Babbage (1791-1871), mathematician; also some papers of John Lee (1783-1866), lawyer, antiquary, and astronomer, and of Sir John Ross (1777-1856), navigator; together with manuscripts of Buxton’s biographies of Babbage and Lee.
Presented by Miss E. M. Buxton, 1994; initially deposited on loan by the Executors of the late Dr L. H. Dudley Buxton, 1939
Anthony Hyman (1985). Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer. Princeton University Press. p. 246. ISBN 0-691-02377-8.
Harry Wilmot Buxton; transcribed by Anthony Hyman (1988). Memoir of the Life and Labours of the Late Charles Babbage Esq., F.R.S.. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-02269-9.
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