Notebook, 'Details of a 10" Spark Induction Coil' by Russell J Reynolds, 1896

Handwritten notebook, 'Details of a 10" Spark Induction Coil' by Russell J Reynolds, with working notes and illustrations, 1896

Russell John Reynolds (1880-1964) was an internationally renowned radiographer and specialist in the field of cineradiography or moving image X-ray films. While still at school, he – with the assistance of his GP father John Reynolds – constructed a fully functioning X-ray machine just months after German scientist Wilhelm Röntgen first described the ‘new type of ray’ in late 1895.

Keen amateurs in Britain were quick to replicate Röntgen’s spectacular experiments using a combination of shop bought and home-made equipment. Fifteen-year-old Russell was particularly well-placed, being the son of a medical doctor and family friend of physicist William Crookes, inventor of the Crookes tube (the early electrical discharge tube used to produce the first X-rays).

John and Russell constructed one of the core components of their machine – the spark induction coil – themselves, documenting their experiments in this notebook. Handwritten in pencil and ink, it details the procedure and materials used, all of which could be purchased readily in the late 1900s.