Ophthalmic prescription work

Historical Significance: This was a popular student text book originally published in the Manufacturing Optician 1959-1962 and includes an interesting account of the materials and manufacture of spectacle lenses and frames at the time. The book went to several further editions under varying titles and authors. There was a Chinese translation published in 1979. Bennett also published Clinical Visual Optics 1989, and Optics of contact lenses 1963. Arthur Bennett(1912-1994) studied optometry at Northampton Polytechnic Institute 1932-1935 before joining Willesden Optical Company as a spectacle lens worker. By 1945 he had joined the technical staff of Stigmat Ltd, partly it seems due that company's intention to manufacture contact lenses, where he stayed until 1951. His interests included telescopic units for the partially sighted and aspheric lenses. He first became a part-time lecturer in 1937 and a full-time senior lecturer at City University in 1962. In 1947 he redesigned an offset zonal scleral contact lens. and was the pioneer of British (BS) Standards on ophthalmic lenses. He wrote over 200 papers and seven books. With Ron Rabbetts he co-wrote the classic Clinical Visual Optics and, as an historian, edited the first English translation of Isaac Barrow's 17th century Lectiones Opticae in 1987. Picture is of Arthur Bennett.