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Kelvin, Bottomley & Baird Standard Dry Card Compass

Dry card compass designed by Sir William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) and made by Kelvin, Bottomley & Baird (successors to Kelvin & White in 1914) of Glasgow, Scotland. 10 inch diam. card, 11 inch diam. bowl. Designed with a very light weight card using a network of silk threads to connect the pivot to the aluminum ring and supporting the 8 needles.

Thompson patented this compass in 1877, and it soon became the standard steering compass for Royal Navy ships. By 1900, the dry card compass had been replaced by the liquid compass in the Royal Navy, so this compass, made after 1914, wouldn't have been used on a Navy ship.

Images courtesy Kahn Fine Antiques, Chatham Ma.

	E.S. Ritchie & Sons 5 in. double card tell-tale compass, 1935 4.5 in. card calibrated in quarter points and degrees. Bottom glass cracked, empty of liquid. Sold by Ritchie to Negus 6/18/35. This is a double card tell-tale compass that can be read from above or below. A larger size of this model was commonly used on whaling ships. It was mounted in front of the wheel in a skylight over the Captain's cabin, so he could see the same compass used by the helmsman, and the compass would be illuminated at night by the cabin lights. When I bought this, I thought it was a dry card compass, but the catalog shown at right shows it to be a liquid compass. This puzzled me, as liquid compasses require expansion chambers usually in the bottom of the bowl under the card, and I didn't see one. Howard Maglathlin at Viking Instruments Inc., S. Weymouth Mass., explained the chamber is in the thick ring around the bottom glass, which I had assumed was just weight to keep the compass level. Image courtesy Todd Harman, Md.	Ritchie's 1925 catalog description.
	Kelvin, Bottomley & Baird Standard Dry Card Compass Dry card compass designed by Sir William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) and made by Kelvin, Bottomley & Baird (successors to Kelvin & White in 1914) of Glasgow, Scotland. 10 inch diam. card, 11 inch diam. bowl. Designed with a very light weight card using a network of silk threads to connect the pivot to the aluminum ring and supporting the 8 needles. Thompson patented this compass in 1877, and it soon became the standard steering compass for Royal Navy ships. By 1900, the dry card compass had been replaced by the liquid compass in the Royal Navy, so this compass, made after 1914, wouldn't have been used on a Navy ship. Images courtesy Kahn Fine Antiques, Chatham Ma.
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