British WWI Gun Sighting Brass Telescope No. 7 Mark I: Dated 1916 Original Items

Original: Only Two Available! Made by W. Ottway & Co. Ltd, Ealing, London, England; in 1916, these are substantial brass constructed telescopes over 29” in length. Both offered in very good working condition. Each comes complete with the ORIGNIAL wood transit chest, again fully marked (faint) 1916 with broad arrow and model name.

W. Ottway & Co was established in 1640 at Orion Works, Ealing in London. They became well-established opticians and by the late 1800s were manufacturing a wide range of different scientific instruments. According to Ottway’s catalogue in 1899 they were manufacturers of; “Naval and Military Gunsighting, Telescopes, Theodolites, Tacheometers, Levels, Miners’ Dials, Prismatic Compasses, Heliographs, Equatorials, Driving Clocks, Filar Micrometers, Coelostats, Transits, Mirrors, Flats, Naval, Military and Astronomical Telescopes, Prismatic Binoculars, Sextants, Auto Collimators, Star Image Collimators, Focometers, Clinometers, Clinometer Testing Instruments, Spectrometers, Spectroscopes, Ships’ Electric Logs, Workshop Microscopes and Optical Measuring Tools, Brass Copper and Nickel Silver Mandrel Drawn Tubes.”

See photo of King George V using a similar telescope looking over the trenches of the Western Front! HRH King George V of Britain (1865-1936) watching the Battle of Pozieres through a telescope. Other officers stand around watching through field glasses. This photograph is likely to have been taken between 23 July and 4 August 1916, the period of the main offensive at Pozieres.