Page 34 - pp-Suter-Miscellany

The Royal Institution in Albermarle Street, little
changed externally from when the Solomons’ lived
within a stone’s throw.

Suter, born in India in 1864, was not yet even in his
teens when the Solomons firm ceased to be. He must
have had his microscope by 1887, well after the demise
of the Solomons firm: by then, and probably before
then, he was at 5 Highweek Rd., Tottenham – still
school teaching, but advertising in Science Gossip, in

October, seeking specimens.

So: why did he have a Solomons instrument? I suspect
the answer may lie with Suter’s father’s association
with the printer and lithographer Isaac Joseph. Isaac
moved to Highweek Road, Tottenham, from inner
London around the same time as the Suter family, and
his daughter was a bookbinder’s apprentice there,
almost certainly under Richard Suter senior: I think
Isaac was the printer for our mounter’s labels at no.5,

and then no.10, Highweek Road (although I cannot
prove it). While still in London, Isaac probably
acquired Solomons instruments via connections with
local Jewry, possibly from Solomons’ deceased estate:
knowing of young Richard Suter’s interest in things
scientific, a microscope then was given or sold to him.
That is speculative, of course: Richard Suter may have
bought the instrument in a second hand shop, or his