Robert Stewart Whipple

Who was Robert Stewart Whipple?

Robert Stewart Whipple was a businessman in the British scientific instrument trade, a collector of science books and scientific instruments, and an author on their history. He amassed a unique collection of antique scientific instruments that he later donated to found the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge in 1944.

Whipple's father, George Mathews Whipple, was superintendent of the Royal Observatory at Kew, and Whipple began his career there as an assistant, before leaving to become assistant manager at instrument making firm L. P. Casella. Whipple moved to Cambridge in 1898 to take up the post of personal assistant to Horace Darwin, the founder of the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company. Whipple spent the rest of his career there, rising to become Managing Director of the firm and later its Chairman.

Whipple was a Founder-Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the Physical Society, where he served as Vice-President and Honorary Treasurer, and President of the British Optical Instrument Manufacturers' Association.