Geometry set including set square belonging to Major J F Doelberg

Made:
circa 1900
maker:
Cary and Company
Geometry set including set square, protactor Geometry set including set square, protactor Geometry set including set square, protactor Geometry set including set square, protactor

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Creative Commons LicenseThis image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Licence

Buy this image as a print 

Buy

License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library

License

Creative Commons LicenseThis image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Licence

Buy this image as a print 

Buy

License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library

License

Creative Commons LicenseThis image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Licence

Buy this image as a print 

Buy

License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library

License

Geometry set including set square, protactor
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Geometry set including set square, protactor
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Geometry set including set square, protactor
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Geometry set including set square, protactor
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Geometry set including set square, protractor, drawing instruments by various makers and plotting scales by Cary, c.1920, with two exercise books containing calculations and chemical 'recipes'.

These instruments and notebooks belonged to Major Julian Frederic Doelberg. After joining the army in 1919, Doelberg passed the exam of the Institution of Electrical Engineers a few years later. Once in the Royal Engineers, the corps of the British Army that provide military engineering and other technical support, he was stationed in Singapore in 1935 (then British colony) as garrison engineer for the Western Defences of Malaya which involved the supervision of various contracts for new construction including the Changi barracks. He most likely used these instruments during his engineering training and the Changi project. Photos taken at the time were donated by Doelberg’s family at the Changi Museum, Singapore and are the only known ones of the site’s initial construction including water buffalo clearing the land.

During World War II, Changi including the Selarang Barracks and Changi prison, was home to civilians, soldiers, and volunteers. Under Singapore’s Japanese occupation (1942-45), it became infamous for holding thousands of Australian and British prisoners of war under squalor conditions until they signed a pledge of non-escape.

Before the start of the war, Doelberg, son of a British mother and a German father who became a naturalised Briton, travelled to Germany to visit relatives. According to his granddaughter, Raine Bryant, during this trip, he spied on German military installations ‘’under his own initiative and proved to be of great help to the Allied cause.’’ During the war, he was deployed to Greece where he was killed in 1941 when German aircrafts bombed the ship in which he was repairing the engine to its way to Crete.

His exercise books include maths calculations and ‘recipes’ for making bombs and explosives showing how mathematics have played a key role in military operations and war. Doelberg’s scientific interests went beyond his professional military engineering training and employment to inventions such as a silent loo flush.

Details

Category:
Mathematics
Object Number:
2008-37
Materials:
wood (unidentified), plastic (unidentified), metal (unknown) and felt
Measurements:
overall: 250 mm x 150 mm x 50 mm, .2kg
type:
geometry set
credit:
Gift of Raine Bryant

Parts

Plotting scales in wooden box belonging to Major J F Doelberg

Plotting scales in wooden box belonging to Major J F Doelberg

Plotting scales in wooden box. 10 parts including box.

Materials:
wood (unidentified)
Object Number:
2008-37/2
type:
geometry set
Image ©
The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Protractor, part of geometry set belonging to Major J F Doelberg

Protractor, part of geometry set belonging to Major J F Doelberg

Large protractor.

Object Number:
2008-37/3
type:
geometry set
Image ©
The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Notebook belonging to J F Doelberg

Notebook belonging to J F Doelberg

Notebook with red and silver patterned cover belonging to J. F. Doelberg.

Object Number:
2008-37/4
type:
notebook
Image ©
The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Notebook belonging to J F Doelberg

Notebook belonging to J F Doelberg

Notebook with sticker on the front inscribed 'Mr. J. F. Doelberg FAIR NOTES MATHEMATICS'.

Object Number:
2008-37/5
type:
notebook
Image ©
The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum